Agusa - 2017 - ST

 

The Laser's Edge – LE 1080

After the two enormous compositions of Två, Agusa’s self-titled third studio album divides its journey into five pieces without making the world inside the music feel any smaller. The shorter forms actually reveal more of the band’s internal movement: melodies arrive, pass between flute, organ and guitar, gather rhythmic weight, then open into a different landscape before familiarity can harden into formula. This remains instrumental progressive rock built from Swedish folk feeling, psychedelic repetition and the physical warmth of musicians playing together, but the attack is firmer now. The rhythm section pushes harder, the guitar occasionally develops teeth, and the pastoral sunlight carries longer shadows beneath it.

“Landet Längesen” begins as though the listener has entered a place remembered from before memory. Jenny Puertas’s flute establishes the melody with unusual gentleness, but Agusa never leaves a beautiful phrase sitting beneath glass. Organ, guitar, bass and drums gradually place it in motion until the piece becomes less a picture of an old country than a journey through one. “Sorgenfri,” named after a Malmö neighborhood while also suggesting freedom from sorrow, compresses the group’s method into five wonderfully active minutes. Flute and organ dart around a rhythm that swings rather than marches, showing how precise Agusa can be without losing their handmade looseness. These musicians do not use complexity to demonstrate control. They use it to make the music breathe through several lungs at once.

“Den Förtrollade Skogen” means “The Enchanted Forest,” but Agusa’s enchantment is never delicate fantasy wallpaper. Their forest contains roots, weather and hidden weight. The flute may carry the most immediately recognizable voice, yet Tobias Petterson’s bass and Tim Wallander’s drumming are constantly altering the terrain below it, while Mikael Ödesjö’s guitar slips between folk-like accompaniment, psychedelic color and sharper rhythmic interruptions. “Sagor från Saaris” moves deeper into the record’s darker, more cosmic side. The music loosens without drifting apart, allowing the instruments to orbit one another until the ensemble suddenly gathers into another shared direction. Agusa’s great strength is that nobody merely waits behind whoever is leading. Every player remains active inside the composition, quietly changing its pressure and destination.

The closing “Bortom Hemom” joins a section in 7/4 to another in 3/4 through a connecting bridge, yet the shifting meters never feel like mathematics displayed under bright museum lighting. They feel like different ways of walking home after home itself has become uncertain. The piece gathers the album’s folk melody, psychedelic propulsion and progressive construction into a finale that keeps transforming while retaining a clear emotional center. There is also a hidden farewell inside the record: organist Jonas Berge played on these sessions but left while the album was being completed, with Jeppe Juul subsequently taking his place in the performing lineup. That transition gives the self-title an extra resonance. This is not simply Agusa announcing who they are; it captures one complete version of the group at the moment it was already becoming another. The album turns change into continuity, making its imagined old country feel not lost in the past but alive wherever these five musicians begin playing.