Gaupa - Fyr [Digipak]

GAUPA return with new mini album "Fyr" and a slimmed down line-up to serve up some of their heaviest material to date. A multi-layered play on words, in the Swedish language "Fyr" can mean 'four', which coincides with this being GAUPA's fourth release. Yet it can also mean 'lighthouse', 'beacon', and 'fire', which for various reasons fit the music and lyrical content as well. New engineer Karl Daniel Lidén has given the tracks on "Fyr" a grittier, more aggressive sound. At the same time, the core elements of the Swedes' musical approach are present: spellbinding intricacy, tripped-out, spacious verses guiding a steady stream of psychedelia, and waves of hard stoner riffs. Inspired largely by Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning science fiction novel "The Word for World Is Forest", vocalist Emma Näslund's lyrics contemplate the concept of time as well as the essential question as to what is real, which seeps throughout the songs. Since the release of their self-titled EP in 2018, GAUPA - which translates as 'lynx' in English - have paved new ground in the stoner and psychedelic scene, building a unique cosmos defined by enchanting lyrical surrealism and mind-altering sounds. In 2020, their debut album "Feberdröm" pushed them into the international spotlight with it's outstanding blend of progressive metal, doom, stoner, and folk, steered by the entrancing vocals of Emma Näslund. The sophomore 2022 full-length "Myriad" reached over a million streams on Spotify (the EP's Febersvan now has over 4 million) with the track 'Exoskeleton'. Although GAUPA describe "FYR" as a "patchwork of parts", with each member having an equal part to play, this mini album comes as a solid record that sets a high bar for their future works. The physical release of "Fyr" comes with a bonus track, which is not included in the digital version.