Communion

This Swedish ensemble have never been shy of ambition: Communion is a 24-track “double album,” with each song representing an hour of the day. This epic strategy takes shape immediately with the slow, graceful build of the opening cut, “Babel On,” where singer Ebbot Lundberg calls upon the masses to “come on” as the song slowly unveils its dramatic arc over a six-and-a-half minute trajectory. An unexpected cover of Nick Drake’s masterwork “Fly” neatly slips in between these anthemic treatises on modern life. “The Ego Delusion,” the sweetly ponderous “Second Life Replay” and “Everything Beautiful Must Die” bounce between serious discussions about life and the silliness that these conversations often evoke. Soundtrack are that unusual group who manage to scale grand heights of potential pretension and somehow manage to take the air out of the balloon with the perfect riff and sudden shift to garage band-type under-sophistication. The band’s unique brand of modern psychedelia helps keep things constantly swirling and under headphones the band’s layers peel away with intriguing moments of insight.