New track today from Regulations, whose self-titled debut album was recently released on Dennis Lyxzén's (The (Int'l) Noise Conspiracy, Refused) new label Ny Våg. Along with Knugen Faller, these dudes are putting Umeå on the map as the place to go for quality punk-rock. And we're talking classic 80s So-Cal style punk, not the kind of stuff that passes for punk on the radio or MTV. This is way more gruff and raw than any of that bullshit. Which is not to say that it's totally lacking in pop flavor. There's still tons of hooks and worthy sing-alongs. I listen to this stuff and I feel like I did when I was twelve years old and just discovering punk for the first time. It's not that they're tackling big issues with the lyrics or anything (they most definitely aren't), but they've got the spirit and that's enough to move me. I often get sour about how bad the scene has become, but then I hear stuff like this and I realize once again that it's not so bad. Can't wait to see 'em when they tour the US this fall. Go here for the latest dates.
Regulations - Fashion girl
Once again I'm going to turn things over to Simon Tagestam for today's new mp3:
Two weeks ago I was back at my parents' house and spent a lot of the time alone driving around in their green Nissan Micra. The car stereo doesn't work in the car so I usually brought my nice little portable cassette player along for the ride, and during the last days of my trip I got totally hooked on this song by Rough Bunnies called "Dance with your shadow". I got so obsessed by the song that I had to unwind the tape every time the song finished, just so I could hear it again, making me a danger to my fellow drivers out on the road, since the cassette player isn't the easiest thing to maneuver with one hand while trying to keep your eyes on the road. Do you understand now how beautiful this song is? It made me a dangerous driver! Seriously, I haven't cried a lot lately but "Dance with your shadow" made my eyes more than misty while driving to my girl's parents' house in the middle of the night, but then it made me super happy half of the time as well (what a song!). When I now hear the song on the stereo in my room it's almost like a different song (for example: the male backing vocals, for some reason, are non-existent on the taped version), but I'm getting slowly used to the more hi-fi version of the song. "Dance with your shadow" is without a doubt the best song I've heard this year and not many songs I've listened to lately have made me feel this confused and warm inside. If you develop a similar liking to this gorgeous song, I would recommend you to put the song on repeat while you record it onto a tape (that's if you haven't got a car with a flashy cd player). The song itself is a bitter lo-fi love song that reminds me a bit of Beat Happening.
Rough Bunnies - Dance with your shadow