Dungen TA DET LUGNT (Subliminal Sounds)

One of the most unapologetically vintage albums in years, Ta Det Lugnt preys on compressed-drum nostalgics, parents who made out to Iron Butterfly and made love to the Byrds, and, most of all, their trust-fund scenester children, who have the swag for Swedish imports and the belief that rock music and everything else reached its peak 20 years before they were born. Singer/multi-instrumentalist Gustav Ejstes is a one-man army, meticulously reinstating sounds that aren’t his own, resurrecting his idols but never struggling with their character. His Dungen album is pretty enough: the Swedish lyrics, since kids don't know Swedish, keep the focus on his big pipes and admirable vocal melodies. And "Panda," "Bortglömd," and parts of the title track do sorta rock. But so did Parson Sound, T. Rex, Todd Rundgren, the Small Faces, and Amon Duul — in the same exact way — and so much harder that Dungen barely merit a footnote in the psych-rock chapter that so infatuates Ejstes. Every musician has his influences, but homage without a hitch is the stuff of fanboys and cover bands, hardly worth all the Web hype and glossy photos Dungen have been treated to.