The Kirwan Song

[vivfox]

The Amazing (hell, even their name suggests obliviousness to any contemporary trends, that’s the name of a glam rock band circa 1973 if ever there was one) have a self-titled debut album that is on one hand beholden to the UK folk revival bands of the late sixties, such as Denny/Thompson period Fairport Convention, and on the other a certain seventies Grateful Dead-esque woozy quality, along with pseudo-Neil Young songwriting. There is also the small matter of… Fleetwood Mac.

The Amazing would probably be flattered by a comparison with that most bloated of rock juggernauts. The first song on their record, ‘The Kirwan Song’ is an exaggerated, but excellent, tribute to Danny Kirwan. Kirwan was the Mac guitarist from 1968 to 1972, and The Amazing apparently have a strange fetish for him. There are indeed Mac-ish touches all over the LP, certainly in the reverb-happy guitar sounds eeked out by Reine Fiske, but The Amazing have a more diverse palette than just humdrum white blues. The odd slip into Americana and even shoegaze ensure that.

The Mac affiliation is furthered by the fact The Amazing are something of a Swedish rock supergroup. Fiske and drummer Johan Holmegard are full-time members of psych hipsters Dungen, while singer Christoffer Gunrup is a prominent Swedish solo artist and multi-instrumentalist Fredrik Swahn a member of Dream Boy. That’s appropriate, because these fellows really, really like Fleetwood Mac. An unfalteringly inventive yet painstakingly and gloriously derivative new band.

http://www.t5m.com/barnaby-smith/int...e-amazing.html