Tengil
Shouldhavebeens

A band from Nangijala it could seem or just a gang of Swedes inspired by Astrid Lindgren’s stories and I suppose that at least here in Sweden Tengil will be better known as the character rather than the band. This is the second album by Tengil the band and it sports a pretty good looking cover and is a story of two friends, three new year’s eves and some strong longings. It tells about decadence, mental illness, nostalgia and those things in a post-hardcorish way. It could have been worth getting if it had been any good considering that the artwork would have looked nice in the vinyl collection.

Post-hardcore is how they are described in the press material and probably the best way to describe them as well. Experimental heavy music, violent and atmospheric could be way to describe them, comparing with other bands fitting similar description is also a good frame of reference. I am not overly impressed with the vocals, the cleaner vocals are not very good and it feels as though the vocals in general drowns the mass of sounds that makes this album – that feels a bit lame I would say. Besides the not so brilliant vocals I think the album does a decent job on the production side, it probably sits somewhere in the average section. The noise parts could have been lessened to give the album a bigger sense of variety, I think all the songs kind of blend into one mass of sounds and that impairs the dynamics of the album making it seem a bit flat.

It isn’t the most impressive of albums I have heard, I would say that the overall sense is that Tengil is better in the Lindgren world than as a band. There isn’t really anything that grabs my attention when I listen and I find myself in other thoughts whenever this album plays. Not that is that poor, it works in the background and those things but there is nothing there than catches and holds my attention – it is a rather drab album and I find myself being unimpressed with it. It might however be a bit more appealing to those who like the similar bands and other bands that fits that kind of description, so if you are one of those you might want to check out this album.

Overall I am not that impressed, it is far from being a great album. It is just too much noise and too little feeling like real substance; I think that Tengil is just better and more interesting in the words of Astrid Lindgren than they are in the music of this quartet.

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