RIKARD SJÖBLOM’S GUNGFLY

One of Big Big Train’s drivers reverts to day job.

Sweden’s Rikard Sjöblom certainly has impeccable prog heritage. His band Beardfish bestrode the 21st century with eight albums of increasing individuality, while in recent years his work – both live and in the studio – with Big Big Train has brought both consolidation and expansion to their already epic sound. His Gungfly (a Swedish word meaning “insecure ground”) project began back in 2009, and last year’s On Her Journey To The Sun album showed him moving tentatively away from the Beardfish template, dipping into Frank Zappa weirdness, jazz and even spoken word.

POSSESSES AN IDENTITY BOTH REASSURING AND REVIVING.

It’d be fibbing to declare that Friendship pushes out further, for it is at root a very rock album, its bones firmly based in guitar surges, its bloodstream heavy with grungy but clean chords. Yet, pleasingly, throughout its grandiose journey, you’re never able to take what might happen in the next minute for granted. The 14-minute title track exemplifies Sjöblom’s desire to reach for the epic, as it burns a trail across a beefy rock platform, digressing into curious keyboard splashes, staccato piano stabs, a dubby symphonic section which feels like a cousin to Gainsbourg’s Histoire De Melody Nelson, a Gilmour-esque stretch of Floyd-ish axe heroics, jagged theatrics which evoke 10cc and an ivory-tickling finale which whispers of Wakeman. Yes, that’s all in one number. Another long’un, If You Fall, Part 2, isn’t quite as ambitious, though that’s a high bar: it still mixes in rhythmic switches which conjure up Rush (frenetic) and Camel (languid).

It’s a given that Sjöblom’s a sensational musician (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards), and the drumming of Petter Diamant and interjections of guitarist David Zackrisson and bassist Rasmus Diamant are diamond-sharp. If there’s a weakness, it’s Sjöblom’s voice, his Achilles’ heel. It lacks texture, lapsing into the reedy at times. This doesn’t dilute the album’s range and robustness, but your ears almost subconsciously twitch for a timbre more warm and welcoming.

That would only enhance the charm of his themes, whereby he delves into childhood memories of friendships which form when young, then peter out as maturity and reality kick in. A Treehouse In A Glade (like the title track) explores this, as Sjöblom seems still mystified by life’s ups and downs. His innocent yearning for the idealism of kids is disarming. He returns again, in his mind, to that treehouse, as the album concludes. Meanwhile the twists and turns of his music remain compelling, and for all the aforementioned comparisons, possess an identity both reassuring and revivifying. On this insecure ground, you’re in safe hands.