Live Review: Dungen, The Laurels

And thus, we have a contender for gig of the year.

When you think about a 'band', you invariably start using the classic ingredients: guitar, bass, drums, voice. It's hard to escape the paradigm, despite today's constantly restless and inventive industry. While there are untold legions of bands using these tried and true elements, it's hard to think of a better combination than Sweden's Dungen. The Oxford Art Factory played host to the friendly visitors as they hawked their new album Haxan (based on a 90-year-old silent animated film). They delivered a show so dense, so cosmic and so rich - all using techniques now considered vintage - that it feels slightly pointless to see the rest of the week's gigs. It might be best to stay in until mid-January.

The Laurels had the honour of warming us up, but they were off. Some bad tuning and lacklustre playing disappointed us. Hit & Miss sounded weak, and they just weren't their usual selves. There were bright spots where we could bliss out with some nice fuzzy squalls, but they were few.

Dungen, on the other hand, played a set in tune with some sort of higher power. Reine Fiske stared into the abyss of his Marshall stack while quicksilver guitar squeals flowed out over the floor. Mattias Gustavsson created looping gyres of bass lines that joined the fray wonderfully. Johan Holmegard's drumming was incredible, creating complex patterns that folded over each other in pillowy waves of tom hits and muted textures. Band leader and creative force Gustav Ejstes led his team through the highs and lows of several albums, and what really impressed us was the immaculate precision they played with, while still being able to maintain a nebulous, benign weirdness. Their seamless work as a single hive mind created pulsing clouds of psychedelic prog, with bursts of pathos blooming amongst the technical wizardry. This was mind-blowing, next-level stuff, and proves that true talent can still wring out exciting material using the most basic of tools.