he album begins with a crackly recording of a speech made by American politician William Jennings Bryan in 1900 on the evils of Imperialism, in which he declares "I can conceive of a National Destiny which meets the responsibilities of today and measures up to the responsibilities of tomorrow. Behold a Republic.....".
This, together with the album title twinning the 'father of the atomic bomb' with the mother of all counterculture music festivals leads you to anticipate a record with a strong socio-political content.
If this is the case, then the message is buried in the dense mix and hidden behind surreal lyrics. Track titles like Terra Firma Legion Farewells and My Neighbour's Blood Is Coke give some indication of the obscurity of the wordplay on offer.
Surrounded are a five piece band from Sweden who formed in 2000 and have released two albums before this one ("Safety In Numbers" and "The Nautilus Years" ). They cite their initial influences as ELO, Meddle"-era Pink Floyd and Simon & Garfunkel.
It is not hard to imagine these eight songs starting life as simple acoustic tracks although somewhere along the line the tunes have been reworked into epic wall of sound numbers.
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The CVs of the producers gives an indication of what to expect; these are Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol), Bill Racine(The Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse) and Paul Mahajan(TV on the Radio, The National, Liars).
I'm not entirely convinced the sonic transformation always works for in the band's favour. Marten Rydell's fragile vocals are certainly no match for this grand scale of the production. The group strive for celestial heights but mostly fall short although there's still enough blissed out dreaminess to their music to make it a pleasurable listen. To paraphrase Bette Davis, who needs the moon when you have the stars.
Surrounded online
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