Fans of the music that borders on the lines of psych and prog, combines the two and throws in quite a few elements that are thrown in for good measure (and pleasure) have certainly come to expect such sounds to come up quite often from Swedish bands.
You can certainly count Stockholm’s Kungens Män into that group of bands as Kungens Ljud & Bild (The King’s Sound and Vision), their latest album certainly fits in into that undefined explorative category. The sextet – Peter Erikson – synth, Hans Hjelm – guitar, Gustav Nygren – guitar, Mattias Indy Petersson – drums, Mikael Tuominen – guitar, vocals, bass and Magnus Ohrn – bass are all over the place here, from any variation of krautrock that suits you to shoegaze, noise and free jazz. Throw anything else you notice while listening.
Of course, such variation in sound can end up being everywhere and really nowhere at the same time if you don’t really know what you are doing or don’t have the full grasp of the sounds you are trying to come up with.
By the sound of it here, Kungens Män don’t have that problem and seem to have well spent their ten years together to hone their sound that relies as much on knowledge and sense as on improvisation and spur of the moment.
The five extended tracks here rely on each member instinctively knowing where the other five guys are going the next second, which creates a very organic sound that could have been created either sometime in the early seventies, yesterday or at any time between these two points, resulting in some exciting and engaging psych/prog.
