Rating: NNNN
Having experienced the sobering, full-on jam band ordeal of Swedish folk-psych crew Dungen live during the Ta Det Lugnt global victory lap, I wasn’t looking forward to hearing more of the same sort of widdly wankery on the follow-up. Fortunately, one-man-band Gustav Ejstes has reasserted complete Dungen control on Tio Bitar, and it seems he’s also had enough of the touring band’s foolery. He’s come up with a well-considered 10-track song cycle of mostly shorter and tighter compositions that combine the catchy, guitar-oriented pop aspects of Ta Det Lugnt – which made Dungen’s North American debut so appealing to those who don’t understand a word of Swedish – with the darker freak-folk stylings of 2002’s Stadsvandringar. So you get the power chord riffs and the jangly bits set to enjoyably twisted rhythms all recorded in the raw for Tio Bitar, which actually doesn’t sound far off of where Ejstes began with his first home recording project. No complaints here.
