For the past seven years, Dungen guitarist Reine Fiske has side-projected his frontman aspirations into the Amazing, his gorgeously atmospheric, neo-psych/prog/aggressively ambient busman’s holiday. With last year’s Picture You, it seemed Fiske and his Amazing compatriots had perfected the hybridization of majesty and intimacy, but the arrival of their fourth full-length just more than a year later shows that the Swedish quintet is no one-trick pony. With a precise combination of tribal drumming, cathedral mellotron, soul-tingling guitar and choir-loft vocals, the Amazing has found a consistently effective method of transforming emotion into a malleable physical presence.
“Blair Drager” and the title track pair the chilly menace of John Cale with the melodic insinuation of Coldplay, while “Through City Lights” strips the grandeur down to a spartan-yet-powerful elegance, drawing even deeper from the well of Ambulance’s beautiful melancholy. The success of the Amazing in general—and Ambulance by proxy—is the band’s uncanny ability to touch on a wealth of styles without flying any specific philosophical flag, thereby remaining unique in tone and execution.
—Brian Baker
