Off and on for 50 years, Swedish group Träden (formerly Träd, Gräs Och Stenar—Tree, Grass and Stones in English) have been making trance rock of solemn yet ecstatic majesty. Their marathon workouts may seem easy to create, but it’s difficult to generate the precise textures and conceive the choicest chord progressions that trigger the deepest feelings of transcendence. The line between sublimity and monotony is slim, and most bands topple into the latter when working in this mode. Träden nail it, time after time.
As the band prove on their 2018 self-titled LP, Träden still have the golden touch, conjuring an elemental elegance and baleful blissfulness for 70 blessed minutes. They demonstrate that if a riff sounds magnificent one time, it will sound even more monumental the hundredth time. The cumulative power they achieve astounds. From deep in their catalog, which Anthology Recordings reissued in 2016, check out “Chrisboogie” from 1973 LP Mors Mors, a 12-minute exemplar, and their cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Last Time” stretches it to nine minutes of bucolic, cyclical hypnosis.
