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Wobbler Premiere “Naiad Dreams” from Dwellers of the Deep (Plus Official Live Video)

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Norwegian heavy progressive rockers Wobbler will issue their new album, Dwellers of the Deep, through Karisma Records on Oct. 23. The band has been active for more than 20 years, and Dwellers of the Deep is their fifth full-length since making their debut in 2005. Its four songs are intricately composed and woven together with classic progressive styling, and each serves a purpose in adding to the pastiche of the 45-minute release as a whole and bolstering a conceptual feel and the overarching melodic focus.

Keyboards run alongside guitars, rhythms play in tight, somehow-funky bursts, and pieces range in movements from grand sweeping sonic gestures to stretches of minimalist atmospherics, the Oslo-based five-piece of vocalist/guitarist Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo (also recorder, percussion and glockenspiel), lead guitarist/backing vocalist Geir Marius Bergom Halleland, bassist Kristian Karl Hultgren, keyboardist/backing vocalist Lars Fredrik Frøislie and drummer Martin Nordrum Kneppen (also recorder and percussion) creating a lush breadth and character of sound that feels at once forward and backward looking. That is, certainly there are elements of King Crimson and other such easy prog influences to note, but more an 20 years on, Wobbler are also no strangers to putting their stamp on prog, whether that’s the in the initial rush that opens “By the Banks” or the subdued acoustic-and-mellotron-driven renaissance folk sweetness of the later “Naiad Dreams,” premiering below.

Those folkish tendencies don’t just show up on “Naiad Dreams” either. That song, the penultimate of the four, might bring them most wobbler dwellers of the deepinto focus, but they’re there too even at some of Dwellers of the Deep‘s most spirited moments. The album sandwiches the eight-minute “Five Rooms” and “Naiad Dreams” with the significantly longer “By the Banks” (13:49) at the outset and “Merry Macabre” (19:00) at the finish, and the effect of doing so is to set up the long-player as precisely that — a full-length intended to be taken in its entirety rather than a collection of songs.

I don’t know if it was written that way, as one or two long pieces subsequently broken up into separate movements to fit on vinyl sides, but the flow conjured throughout makes the proceedings all the more immersive, as Wobbler keep a poise to their delivery even as they dig through the farthest reaches of “Merry Macabre,” which has plenty of time to crescendo, recede, and cap the album with futuristic synthesizer as though the band were uniting the past with what’s to come in stylistic terms. Coupled with the bouncing organ in “Five Rooms” earlier, the periods of heavier push to be found, and the sheer nuance of the material, it’s a testament to Wobbler‘s established status that the record doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own headiness, but it doesn’t at all. Wobbler are able, on a level of execution, to realize the ambitious scope of their songwriting both because they’ve done it before — 2017’s From Silence to Somewhere; also a gem — and because it’s a central part of their modus. It is because it has to be and it has to be because it is.

So. You should not approach “Naiad Dreams” thinking it summarizes the entire album. It doesn’t. At all. To be fair, neither does “Merry Macabre,” and that’s about four times as long. You take what you can get. However, on a compositional level and in terms of the atmospheric affect of Dwellers of the Deep, you’re at very least getting a piece of the greater puzzle, and one with a peaceful and pastoral melody at that. You can always go back and check out the full record when it’s out, but for now, losing your head for a couple minutes and mellowing out with “Naiad Dreams” feels like the way to go.

As always, I hope you enjoy:

Wobbler, “Naiad Dreams” official live video

Wobbler on “Naiad Dreams”:

“‘Naiad Dreams’ is special in the way that it’s our first foray into a short song that stands on its own. It came to life late in the recording process and was written and recorded on an inspired May morning. It’s a rather minimalistic composition with very few elements that gets plenty of room to shine. It is the breathing space on the coming album where playful naiads make you gaze into the depths.”

Preorders:
https://www.karismarecords.no/kar194-wobbler-dwellers-of-the-deep/ (Karisma)
https://wobbler.bandcamp.com/album/dwellers-of-the-deep (Bandcamp)
https://karismarecords.aisamerch.com/ (US orders)

Consisting of four distinctive pieces “Dwellers of the Deep” is a fine example of WOBBLER´s trademark creative whims and playful exuberance, and the band has offered an insight into what fans can expect from the album and what went into its creation:

The recording sessions were somewhat shaped partially by what was happening during the first months of Covid-19. In a very Decameronesque way, we sent “histories” to each other from our hermitages, while the plague waited in the shadows outside. It contributed to a sense of meaningful gravity, making it crucial that the task at hand be fulfilled with our most sincere and unparalleled endeavours.

The lyrical themes on the album deal with human emotions, and the ongoing struggle between juxtaposed forces within the psyche. An introspective voyage amongst the realms of memories, feelings and instincts, where the light is brighter and the dark is darker. The concepts of wonder, longing and desperation permeates the histories told, and the currents from the deep are ever present. The final track, “Merry Macabre”, is a 19 minute suite taking the listener through aspects of the darker sides of WOBBLER´s sound. It probably sums up what we wanted to express this time around; songs with a weirder tint, an experimental, almost impressionist splitting of themes that at the same time provides a larger frame.

Formed in Hønefoss in 1999, WOBBLER’s lineup features Lars Fredrik Frøislie on keyboards and backing vocals, Martin Nordrum Kneppen on drums, percussion and recorder, Kristian Karl Hultgren on bass, Andreas Wettergreen Strømman Prestmo on vocals, guitar, glockenspiel, recorder and percussion and Geir Marius Bergom Halleland on lead guitar and backing vocals.

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