Tag: guitar

Undergrünnen are finally ready with the follow-up to the critically lauded and Spellemann nominated debut album.

It was winter again and in Haugesund it rained, if possible, even more than before. There was nothing else to do for Undergrünnen but to barricade themselves in the studio and daydream of sweaty clubs and hot beaches. Roof leaks, the IRS, pining for fast money, deaths in the family and the monotonous bore of working for the post office, influenced and inspired the wild recording sessions that resulted in the new record.

The album’s centerpiece is the hectic, 13 minute long “Nå e me her” (“Now we’re here”). A wild ride with frantic guitar picking, congas and almost chanted vocals. The lyrics have become eerily relevant in these chaotic times, with repeated lines of “I’m not getting any peace”, “what are we doing here”, “have to wait here” and “what do I do now”. Sounds like existential crises in quarantine times, if you ask us.

With Ein revnande likegyldighet, the band takes their music even further than what the debut could. The production is more cheeky, the songwriting is sharper. The songs vary between the two-and-a-half-minute rocker “Burmavegen Baby” to the 13-minute afro-kraut-banger “Nå e me her”. The album consists of six songs that takes the listener on a rhythmical excursion in hip-shaking, unclassifiable rock – in Norwegian.

The Undergrünnen of 2020 mixes 60’s psychedelia, afrobeat, jazz and minimalistic new wave, with Pål Jackman’s biting lyrics about life’s existential nonsense and the unbearable indifference of being. In other words, it still sounds unmistakably like Undergrünnen. As one writer noted on the former album: “It’s as though Paul Simon had eschewed Ladysmith Black Mambazo for ‘Graceland‘ and asked, say, The Monks or MC5 to be his backing band instead AND they sing in Norwegian”.

Ein revnande likegyldighet was recorded in Hauge Sjakklubb, Karmøy, with Vegard Fossum (Beforeigners) as technician, and was mixed and mastered in London’s Eastern Studios by Jason Emberton (Nick Cave, Warren Ellis).

“Nå e me her” is released on Jansen Records May 8th 2020.