ÖBACKA SÅGVÄRCK – Haru nånsin varit död (Subliminal Sounds, 1969-1972, released 2023)

Swedish vocals

International relevance ***

I don't know where this notion comes from that if something has gone unreleased for decades, that's enough reason to finally put it out there. Or for that matter where this misconception originates that if something is crappy-sounding and the musicians can tell an instrument from a muckrake by nature should be better than music performed in a comprehensible fashion. Sometimes a reissue label hits pure gold, as Subliminal Sounds did with the amazing Great Ad album, but very few archival releases can match that one. So I took Subliminal Sounds' blurb for ”Haru nånsin varit död” ”a mind-bending musical discovery” with a huge pinch of salt. But perhaps they weren't entirely wrong this time after all?

A shortlived Umeå band, Öbacka Sågvärck only existed between 1969 and 1972. During that period they managed to create some surprisingly forward-looking heavy rock several years ahead of its time. It might be that they even beat November, consensually hailed as Sweden's first proper hard rock band, to the punch. Only that Öbacka Sågvärck were a far dirtier, sleazier, grittier combo judging by these underground tapes.

And underground it is, for better or for worse. Let's start with the bad. The longest track, the closing medley of ”A dä lä dää” and ”Centralgården”, has a horrendous sound, so bad it sounds like a severe hearing disorder. Another drawback is that two tracks are repeated (including ”A dä lä dää”), so if you chop these out, you're left with merely half an album (more precisely side one). It suggests that there wasn't too many usable recordings to choose from, and that fillers were needed to flesh out the running time.

The good thing is that the remaining half is rather impressive. This is how I want my hard rock: a loud, nasty, low-down, take-no-prisoners ruckus, with an authority that can easily out-do several better-known bands in the genre. It's not quite that promised ”mind-bending musical discovery”, and it's not on the same level as Great Ad, but the good parts are indeed valuable and until now unknown pieces in a historic jigsaw puzzle. Regardless of my objections, that justifies this release that deserves to heard and appriciated accordingly by fans and historians alike.

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