We hopefully should be featuring an Album a Day this week, and after the melodic strains of 'Agacy' yesterday, today we feature Swedish rock band 'Phogg', who have a psychedelic and even slightly progressive basis to their music. There a 4 piece band from 'Stockholm' who debuted with an EP called 'Zun, Stein & Graaf' in 2017, followed by an album 'Slices' last year, and their new release curiously entitled 'Mofeto: Mashine Adamkosh' was released back in September.
Since the release the band have received the attention of some lovely music blogs across the world, as well as travelling to Finland for live performances, and it's clear that the album has been widely appreciated by everyone who's heard it - or at least, everyone who's heard it and liked it enough to write about it, which maybe isn't quite such an impressive claim, but certainly now includes us at Nordic Music Review.
'Mofeto: Mashine Adamkosh' is an interesting and enjoyable fusion of traditional rock influences and experimental ideas, interspersed with moments of utter brilliance - which I'll shamelessly label as 'Cardiacs moments'. Combining warped psychedelia, some heavier stoner style rock, punk / post punk vocals and some indie pop thrown in for good measure, it has a depth and a vision which makes it as mesmerizing as it is unusual and different, not afraid to veer off in directions that I wasn't quite expecting either - just take a listen to 'Eatr' and you'll see what I mean.
It opens with a lovely curiosity in Tivoli', before launching into the 'Pearls', searing guitars, a high energy wall of psychedelic noise before opening up with a simple guitar riff that would be simple if it wasn't in an unfathomable time signature (or maybe it's dead easy), and this of course throws the music in a slightly off kilter direction. 'Stupid Kid' was the track that originally appealed, maybe it's the unconventional song structure matched against the post punk vocals - in a song inspired by Guy Picciotto from the legendary DC punk band Fugazi. 'Three Shirts' gallops along at pace, I love the staccato rhythms at the start and the twists and turns take the song again in a variety of directions, with 60's melodic influences and a whir of scrawling intense psychedelia to finish.
After a brief interlude with 'Fish Pond', we're offered the simply astonishingly good 'With Love', a gorgeous chord progression and opening up to the most sumptuous section some 2 minutes 20 in, spoken word with beautifully conceived instrumentals that are not only officially 'Cardiacs moments', but reminds me a little of the lovely 'Army of Moths' track 'One Day Soon'. 'Nachtman' is a whirlwind of 'Cyberpunk', dark and slightly threatening, but 'Eatr' gets things back on track, a glorious fusion of ideas opening up with an indie pop style chorus, before it disappears back down another curious alleyway. Maybe the mostly instrumental 'Fish, Bank & Area' has slightly less interest for me musically, and the concluding track 'Song for Ylvis' is a softer reflective song, which wraps things up nicely after such a variety of sounds and textures.
OK so I fully appreciate that 'Mofeto: Mashine Adamkosh' won't be for everyone, there's a darkness that reverberates in some tracks, the complexity of the rhythms, chord progressions and sound textures might be alien to some, but for me this is music to get completely immersed in, and in tracks such as 'With Love' they hit the mark just so well that I've found myself re-listening over and over. I almost don't feel as if I've listened enough in the last week to write an album review, because there is so much more to discover in 'Phogg's' curious space psyched experimental world, but I think it's only fair that you should all have chance to get to know 'Mofeto: Mashine Adamkosh' too before the end of the decade.
Nordic Music Review 8.5/10
Buy the album on Bandcamp or visit them on Facebook.