Dungen - '4' (Subliminal Sounds) Released 06/10/08

‘Hope you like our new direction’ must rank amongst the most worrying phrases a band can address their audience with. With their fourth album, Sweden’s foremost psych-rock explorers Dungen prove that opting for a trip through previously unvisited territory doesn’t have to result in a stumbling embarrassment.

The exact opposite of its prosaic title, ‘4’ is nothing short of an awe-inspiring reinvention, a remarkable step towards a truly distinctive sound for a band renowned for their expert milking of vintage sources. As with most fresh ideas, it takes a bit of time for the unquestionable quality of the new sound to sink in. At first, ‘4’ may come across oddly muted, calm to the point of listlessness, pretty but toothless, strangely reluctant to reveal the captivating depths lurking beneath its smooth surfaces. Flutes twirl where the stinging guitar solos used to reign, soaring strings providing soothing balm replace the wild cosmic interludes that populated past output, full-blown freak-outs give room for graceful, painstakingly constructed mini-symphonies such as the startlingly lovely hippie jazz instrumental ‘Maleras Finest’. Where are the Hendrixian fretboard fireworks and the Who-esque adrenalin overloads that elevated Dungen’s 2004 masterpiece ‘Ta Det Lungt’ alongside Black Mountain’s debut and Comets on Fire’s ‘Avatar’ as one of the finest platter to emerge from the ongoing psych-boogie rehabilitation movement?

Apply a bit of patience, though, and ‘4’ emerges as at the very least the equal of the hyper-energetic Dungen of old. By switching from guitar to piano, and thus totally reshaping the band’s sonic identity, bandleader-producer Gustav Ejstes repositions Dungen as an enchantingly expansive folk-rock outfit pitched halfway between David Axelrod’s rich productions and Nick Drake’s ‘Bryter Layter’, as such bringing the process begun on 2006’s one half hard rock, one half bucolic charm offering ‘Tio Bitar’ to its surefooted conclusion. The outcomes are akin to the clichéd ‘getting it together in the country’ method of classic combos ala Traffic and the Band, although in Dungen’s case the fresh air-fuelled jams remain tighter and more focused than their sprawling, bleary eyed forebears. The obsession with the late-60’s and early-70’s remains, but Ejstes’s hip hop-inspired habit of crafting cohesive wholes from a multitude of often wildly contrasting tracks, reference points and ideas – check out the super-funky drums firing up the melodic prog-pop beauty of ‘Det Tar Tid’, possibly Dungen’s most stunning moment to date, or the delicate xylophone at the forefront of the driving instrumental stomp of ‘Fredag’ – moulds the proceedings into something unmistakably contemporary.

Add to this a couple of steaming workouts devoted to exhibiting guitarist Reine Fiske’s mind-blowing prowess in the distortion department and the violin-fuelled, majestic melancholy of the astonishing opener ‘Satt at Se’, and you’ve a richly rewarding album that deserves to catapult Dungen far beyond their current cult status.