You know that feeling you get in the middle of a sunny, breezy Sunday when you feel the week to come stretching out toward you? You still have enough of the weekend left to have another beer and stare out at the dust particles reflecting in the sun, but there is a restless voice in the back of your head telling you that eventually you will have to resign yourself to the impending doom of Monday. The Amazing have captured that hazy disquiet on their self titled debut, an album as enjoyable, and conflicted, as any Sunday afternoon.
A sort of Swedish indie/psych supergroup, composed of members of Dungen and Granada, The Amazing play psyche/folk edged with post-Radiohead britpop. Touches of Nick Drake, Parachutes-era Coldplay, early Verve, the aforementioned Radiohead and a healthy dose of Laural Canyon sun-kissed 70s folk inform the band's sound. What sets the band apart is that they play with a confidence that few bands can muster. Although much of their music is mellow, there is nothing lax about their performance. It's hard to recall a band that sounds so tightly focused and relaxed at the same time.
Expansive pieces, like opener "The Kirwan Song," sound effortless, even though just under the song's veneer a psychedelic maelstrom rages. Whereas simple acoustic numbers like "Beach House" bare a spaciousness that imparts an epic and timeless quality to the music. As with most of The Amazing's music, it is what is going on beneath the surface of their slightly melancholic psychpop songs that makes this album such a special piece of work.
Not everything is subtlety and poise though. The band explodes on the incredible "Code II." A blizzard of drums and organs punctuated by doomy guitar riffs dominates the piece until an ascending guitar pattern breaks through the mix taking the song to a whole new level. It's the audial equivalent of storm clouds parting and revealing a rainbow amidst the downpour. In the end it shimmers and shines like those raindrops caught in the Sun's rays.
The Amazing's debut album ends up sounding much grander than a simple side project for the members involved. In some ways it ends up being more enjoyable than either Dungen or Granada's primary works. More spectacularly though, is that it's conceivable that a couple of albums from now The Amazing could stand a shot at joining that long list of influences mentioned earlier. It wouldn't entirely be surprising if a few years from now some reviewer somewhere says 'this bands sounds like The Amazing," when trying to pigeonhole some new psychefolk band that plays hauntingly epic pop songs.
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