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Agusa - Högtid CD (album) cover

HÖGTID

Agusa

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

4.05 | 236 ratings

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ElChanclas
4 stars Album Review 061: Agusa - Högtid; April 2nd 2014

Högtid (Feast in English) is the studio album debut from Swedish space, symphonic and #psychedelicprog band #agusa, and is mostly an instrumental trip, a 45 minutes very rewarding trip.

Uti Vår Hage (In Our Garden) its the opening statement of the band to the common public, an immense and circular retro symphonic track that manages to maintain an attentive listener throughout the 11 plus minutes with lots of psychedelic blues-based guitars, jazzy percussion that goes up and down, the funky and fat bass commanding the magic and the multi layers of every type of organ or keyboard available, super catchy!

Melodi Från St Knut (Melody from St Knut) is the more immediate track of the life record and brings the first true hook to guarantee additional listens! It's definitely not the strongest track on the album but it is very catchy and the guitar work towards the end is fantastic. It has that medieval enchanting minstrel-like melody that's hard to avoid and very difficult to forget.

Östan Om Sol, Västen Om Måne (East of Sun, West of Moon) delivers The Doors style looping psychedelia with tons of wonderful middle eastern sounding melodies and a crunchy and pungent guitar soloing that rips brain and ears apart, while the rhythmic section struggles to bring balance to the premeditated chaos, really masterful maneuver from this very talented prog quartet. Beauty steps in for the last quarter of the track simply enhancing the experience a little more, someone took over! Maybe the Moon???

Stigen Genom Skogen (The Path through the Forest) starts with a pretty haunting organ playing that will be accompanied briefly by the first vocals in over 30 minutes, amazing guitars again and an immense playing by bass and drums, really spectacular. The track starts building up around the constant dramatic rhythm over which layers of organ and guitars intercede and collide proving how good the band is in #spacejamming staying within the tight structure but always delivering different and new "little" sounds.

And finally Kärlek Från Agusa (Love From Agusa) where the band enters again into that melodic #jazzfusion territory they navigate so well, and all instruments have their chance to shine before leaving the listener craving for more stupendous instrumental retro oriented #symphonicprog

The Feast is a good place to start for new listeners, at least it was for me! Enjoy!

ElChanclas | 4/5 |

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