Album Review: Ta Det Lugnt by Dungen

Psychedelic rock has seen a number of revivals since its heyday in the late '60s. Often times, these bands sound like they're simply aping the influences they wear so prominently on their sleeves. Dungen, on the other hand, sound like they've somehow been directly transported from 1968 to the present. Maybe it's their vintage equipment, or maybe it's the fact that most listeners probably haven't heard much Swedish-language psychedelia for comparison, but this doesn't have the second- or third-generation rehashed flavor that so many modern psychsters can't avoid.

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Dungen is less of a band, and more of a project centered around the efforts of multi-instrumentalist and songwriting wunderkind Gustav Ejstes, a young Swede who has thus far managed two other albums of folk-tinged psyche rock for Sweden's Subliminal Sounds label. While his talents as both a player and a composer are undeniable, how they are ultimately applied to Ta Det Lugnt ("Take It Easy," for those of you unfamiliar with Swedish), his third full-length for the Subliminal Sounds label can present something of a problem over the course of its 40 minutes and change. While it is undeniably a good record, reaching into the stratosphere of excellence at points, Ejstes' overall modus operandi seems more akin to outright homage at times than any sort of exploration of the means and methods of vintage '70s rock and its application in a modern context.

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