Edena Gardens, the Danish 3-piece which includes Papir’s Nicklas Sørensen(guitar), Martin Rude(bass and guitar), and Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt, are on a tear. For the last few years this music trio has put out a steady flow of slow-churning post-rock psychedelia. Taking slow groove blues vibes with dystopian cosmic rock and giving us the perfect soundtrack to the end of the world. Imagine something like Earth, Ry Cooder, and Saint Vitus all rolled into one desert road trip mix tape and you’ll have an idea of what these Edena Gardens boys are cooking up.
With a succession of excellent long players behind them, you’d understand a break so the band could regroup and see where things sit, but the band have followed up last year’s excellent Dispossessed with something epic, heavy and what I’d call a masterpiece.
Quintessence is nearly 80 minutes and a double LP that feels as if it came to us from some other realm. An album side record if I’ve ever heard one. The kind of late night jams that go best with a pint, some incense, and something to put your psyche into the cosmos.
Everything about this album screams “epic”, “magnum opus”, and “masterpiece”. From the double LPs, the nearly 80-minute runtime, the double gatefold sleeve; to Martin Rude’s killer album art, and of course the songs.
Side one is titled “Putrefaction” and opens in sludgy guitar that sounds like Sleep in blues mode. “Nigredo” is the heaviest Edena Gardens has been, and they take their sounds to new sonic heights here. Side two is titled “Purification” and feels spacious and builds long running sonic landscapes, as if Tony Williams fronted a post-rock outfit on some off-world colony. “Earth Blemish” truly shows off the guitar prowess of Sørensen, somehow bringing to mind Hendrix, McLaughlin, and Robin Trower all in one grand riff-fest. “Calcified Bone and Weathered Stone” hangs in bluesy, jangly tones. There’s a dusty southwest quality to this stunning track that brings to mind the great Lambchop and the score work of Ry Cooder.
Side three, or “Transmutation”, opens with “Amber Deposits” which has an almost upbeat swing to it, which builds to a feedback drenched ending that leads into the funky cosmic jam of “Into Citrinitas”. This is the biggest shot out of the park for Edena Gardens, giving us an all out funky jam. Wah wah guitars, Headhunters groove, and a looseness that opens the Edena Gardens gates to new musical worlds. And Side four, “Quintessence”, is the inevitable end of the journey. “The Vermillion Quintessence” is a journey in and of itself; bluesy, soulful, and slow burning groove that gives us a longform goodbye from the articulate, fantastical journey the band has taken us on.
With Quintessence, Edena Gardens has truly given us their magnum opus; from the epic jams, psychedelic album art and Jonas Munk’s engineering wizardry. It’s a record of heft, heady compositions, and vast musical landscapes that never fails to amaze. Quintessence puts Edena Gardens into the stratosphere.
9.5 out of 10
Out now via El Paraiso Records.
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