Sweden seems to have the mysterious, and fortunate, habit of sprouting Cream‐obsessed psych bands

like hairs on your Nana’s upper lip. I have no idea why, and your guess is as good as mine — I’m thinking

someone spiked the akvavit with bong water, but that’s just me. Point is, stateside fans benefit from

inexplicably bluesy exports like Witchcraft and Graveyard (the former having churned out 2007’s finest

album), and if Dead Man’s “Euphoria” is any indication, the well ain’t running dry anytime soon.

The first three tracks offer few surprises, though “High and Low” possesses a particularly potent groove;

think the spaced‐out vibe of Jefferson Airplane crossed with The Open Mind’s massive bottom‐end. No,

the true mind‐fuckery begins with “I Must Be Blind:” Gentle melodies and bright acoustic work quickly

give way to grimy riffs and a solo that sounds like it was scraped off of Curtis Mayfield’s abandoned

basement floor, before completing the 360 and bringing back the sunshine. After a brief instrumental,

“Light Vast Corridors,” the album’s most outright trippy tune, follows with whirlpools of effects and a

guitar tone that seems to emanate from whatever vast underwater cavern where Cthulhu’s acolytes

have stockpiled the lost home recordings of It’s a Beautiful Day. And after your mind implodes in a puff

of angel dust from the two multi‐part epics “The Wheel” and “Rest in Peace,” “A Pinch of Salt” hits you

with a hemp‐laced wall of twang, dominated by pedal steel and flat‐picked mandolin.

It would be one thing for Dead Man to simply take cues from their countrymen and try to update

“Disraeli Gears;” hell, they’d probably still make a great album, but “Euphoria” distinguishes itself not

with an overabundance of nostalgia or guitar heroics, but through its willingness to embrace seemingly

disparate genres and so fluidly meld them into such a cohesive, formidable, and thoroughly unique
sound. Recommended for trips of both the road and acid varieties.

* Metro Spirit is a free weekly newspaper focusing on the arts, local issues, entertainment, people, places, and events that reflect the true spirit of the metro Augusta market.  The free, A&E weekly has a circulation of 38,389 and is available at over 100 locations in and around Augusta.