04092015 - Undergrünnen "Undergrunnen"

Oh, that good ol' innernet, eh? Today saw the release of this album, and several friends have bragged about it, peppering my facebook feed with not just praise, but also comparisons to a lot of bands that I like. Like MC5 meets Afro rock or Mali meets Can. Junglekraut is their own word for this, and it's a description I like. So colour me intrigued, but do they have the stuff? The "it"? Are all those fine words justified? To me the fact that they sing in Norwegian, and a dialect to boot, is neither a plus or a minus. As long as the music is good, they should do whatever works for them. And yes, I hear both the Kraut and the Afro influences, and they do fit well together on this album without sounding forced. Mostly. Personally I prefer the bits where they set the controls for the heart of the Kraut-space, and could have done with less Vampire Weekend noodlings, but I guess you can at least say that they have found a niche that wasn't already taken. Good for them. However, this means that a song like "Tennene i no stort" doesn't really do it for me, while the closing duo of "Garpaskjær zulujive" and "Dommedag i E" are pretty much total brilliance in my ears. At 9 minutes, the former is the album's longest track, and letting the songs stretch out really becomes them. Personally I would have recommended even more jamming and space-effects, but that's just the Hawkwind fan in me. Definitely a band I want to see again, and probably an album I will play again.