I really enjoy my forays into Scandinavia. I invariably find something that rings my bell on each trip and today has been no exception hearing four bands, some of which have appeared in Eurorock columns before. The good news is that each of them has a new album out.
Gargamel – Descending
First we are off to Oslo where Norway’s Gargamel have released their much anticipated second album Descending. Their debut Watch For The ‘Umbles came out in 2006 and set the scene and confirmed that Gargamel as ‘one to watch’.
Descending is, if anything, a touch more melancholic, and definitely darker. The album is made up of four lengthy progressive tracks all of which are loaded in atmosphere, alive with energy, and deep in imagination. The band builds darkly twisting corridors of colour, and intrigue within their music something that is never more perfectly illustrated than with the album closer “Labyrinth”.
Firstly, it opens with the haunting and somewhat ominous title track which clocks in at ten minutes. It is vaguely Peter Hammill with its thickly sliced sense of foreboding, and is further enriched by a little Ray Manzarek splashed across the canvass. The chill wind that signals the arrival of “Prevail The Sea” creates ever more ominous images.
Its twelve minutes leads to the shorter “Trap”, and the sprawling and appropriately named “Labyrinth” which weaves a near twenty minute spell at the tail of the album. There is a vague, deeply lying gentle knock on the door from Sid Barrett, powerful memories of King Crimson, and some more Van der Graaf, meshed with enough conjuring of musical visions to satisfy a ‘Deadhead’ convention.
The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio and are all the stronger for the resulting energy levels and immediacy. The vast array of instruments, such as mellotrons, synths, horns, woodwinds, strings, and more, all arrived later to create the maze of sounds on the record.
Personally, I love it. Then again, I was part of the group of weirdoes that listened to Van de Graaf and King Crimson when most of the others at school were into Top Of The Pops. If you can identify with that, then try this.
Gosta Berlings Saga – Detta Har Hant
A while back I reviewed instrumental Stockholm band Gosta Berlings Saga’s album Tid ar Ljud. In my review, I enthusiastically referred to the band's website which stated, “under the heading ‘influences’, they merely write ‘ancient wisdom’. Under ‘sounds like’, they add, ‘like the band your unmarried, childless uncle with that beard and weird smell likes."
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