The Amazing 'The Amazing' (Subliminal Sounds) Released 16/11/09

You’ve got to have some self-confidence to go with a name like that, but the Swedish six-piece’s chosen handle necessitates no complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. The Amazing really are, well, amazing.

Not that they’ll be picking up trophies for groundbreaking innovation anytime soon. The Amazing’s musical reference points don’t reach much further than the early 70’s; this is an album that’s more interested in rummaging in the long-forgotten, dusty corners of the past than gazing bravely into the future. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that. At a time when the antiquated long-hair likes of Hendrix and Pink Floyd remain hot property for other than purely nostalgic reasons, an ability to twist vintage influences into compelling new shapes should be enough to secure the listeners’ interest. As with fellow Swedes Dungen (the two bands share a few members), The Amazing have no problems whatsoever in squeezing fresh, singular sounds from oft-cited sources. What might in the wrong hands resort to pointless pastiche, an exercise in aping past masters, becomes in many places during these ten tracks considerably more adventurous and original than what most bands trading exclusively in the hip, the happening, the now can manage.

‘The Amazing’s essentially an album that tried to decide whether to indulge in extended jams or sit down for a spot of stripped-down strumming, only to find out it could tackle both approaches with equal aplomb. As such, drawn-out but dynamic ‘electric’ tracks intersperse with breezy bucolic numbers. Of the former, ‘The Kirwan Song’s especially effective, a cloud-hugging, Dungen-flavoured groove built around a hook on loan from Danny Kirwan (guitarist for the bluesy first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac). ‘Dead’ misfires into excessive heavy-handedness, but the dreamy 10 minutes of epic ‘Had to Keep Walking’ – with echoes of the bleary-eyed blues of Neil Young’s ‘On The Beach’ – that follow more than compensate for the odd stumble.

Of the quieter moments, the heavy-lidded small hours smokiness of ‘Romanian’ is pure bliss, a slice of whispered beauty floating on a particularly atmospheric performance from Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske. ‘Is It Likely’, meanwhile, borrows the jazzy beat from Nick Drake’s ‘At the Chime of The City Clock’ with outstanding outcomes. Add to this drops of excellent, early John Martyn-hued folk-rock (‘Dragon’, ‘Deportation Day’), and you’ve an uncommonly surefooted debut.