Tag: Reviews
I had never heard of this band until Avi began posting about them and his passion for them made me want to give it a listen. Here's my verdict: this is great. In a year (like every year) with fantastic indiepop albums coming out of the Nordic lands, Lemonator has really found a true gem, but one of those that doesn't need polish because the flaws are what truly makes it shine. This is an epic album, not in length, but in feel and movement. Lemonator perfectly portrays the feelings of love, happiness, loss and admiration with it's somewhat simple lyrics and perfect music. The vocal melodies take center stage and send chills, most notably on the album closer "The perfect couple" (which is just amazing, that's the only way to put it). This band has found out how to make a stellar album, and I can just hope it continues.
- Matt Giordano
This classically trained Swedish singer/songwriter has pretty much summed up her own album (her second, I believe) with that title. It's actually sort of a grower; I don't want to start off by criticizing it. Lithell is a thoughtful lyricist, apparently haunted by memories of her childhood and disturbed by the oft-impersonal nature of modern life. In the appealingly honest song "Free society," she sings: "For hours in a row/I've walked these lonely walks/Where everyone's on the phone/And no one really talks/Mobile - but not free/Eyes wide - but cannot see...This progress is no solution/It alienates us instead..." Gosh, I've been waiting for SOMEONE to write a song about the social downer of rampant cell phone and iPod use; thanks, Maria! That's one of the few rhythmically upbeat tracks on this otherwise rather stately, richly orchestrated chamber pop collection. Elsewhere, strings and things dominate, like Marco Chagallo's fine violin on "I'm still me" and the perfect orchestration on "Will I ever learn," a tune where Lithell shows off her vocal range but somehow fails to inject enough emotion to truly put it over. I suppose that's my main complaint: Lithell's technically solid as a singer, but about half these tunes are missing the extra emotional edge that the lyrics demand. Where it does kick in is on the last two songs: "The ice is singing," a hauntingly spare tone poem featuring Fredrik Hermansson's stirring piano, and "Freeze the frame," an undeniably poignant song about wishing you could stay young, eternally enjoying the quiet magic of nature and simpler times. That one might make you cry, but some numbers like the title track and "Bed full of flowers" are a bit bland by comparison. "Have I asked the right questions?/Have I got the answers right?" sings Lithell on the latter tune. Well, Maria, I'd say your lyrical concerns are quite thoughtful and most of the arrangements are lovely. Just turn up the "emote-o-meter" and try varying your vocal approach a bit more, and I'm sure your NEXT record will be an even greater blessing.
- Kevin Renick
I'm retiring the word "shoegaze" from my personal reviewing vocabulary; I think it's demeaning and overused. I much prefer the acronym-friendly "electro-ambient dream-pop" (EADP) to instantly place the sound of bands like Sweden's Red Moon in its rightful category. This delightful 4-track demo is a sublime, confident rush of lush, melancholy drone-song from the minds of Katarina and Eva Thulin. Although they're mining territory similar to Majessic Dreams, the Thulin girls build up a chiming surge of atmosphere throughout these tracks that carries you along like a fast-moving glacier (and there's a chilly ambience that provides plenty of Nordic allure). "Nothing there" generates a soothing flow from the soft keyboards and whispery vocals, but then drums kick in unexpectedly and give the tune a stellar peak, showing the pop smarts these girls possess. "Landslide" blends a lush soundscape with just a wisp of percussion, lyrically seeming to be about a lover who can't keep his promises (the vocals are mesmerizing, but are mixed to a near drone, so the words aren't always easily discernible). "The height" utilizes acoustic guitars and a static-laden foreground before launching a fairly hypnotic rhythmic element that sounds terrific through headphones. I admire the willful creative aesthetic that goes into generating sonic landscapes like this. The lyric says something about being "in the land of the midnight sun," and the music makes you feel that you are. "Closer" is a bit reminiscent of "Victorialand"-era Cocteau Twins, with subtle alterations in the vocals-to-soundscape ratio. You get the sense that the soft female voices here could dissolve into gentle static at any moment, and maybe that'll be a Red Moon trademark, who knows. But on the basis of this first recording, the Thulin sisters are certainly engaging practitioners of this particular strain of dreamy Scandinavian drone-pop, and I'll look forward to their full-length.
- Kevin Renick
Continuing with their piano-laden brand of indie-pop, The Second Band bring us another EP of great sing-a-long catchy tracks, and soft downtempo numbers. While the band still flows best with the uptempo pop tracks, their craft for writing solid slower songs has improved greatly (see "A song I can't recall" with its Bright Eyes meets Counting Crows feel), and if they come up with a new full-length album, could easily cement themselves at the top of the Swedish indie pop scene.
- Matt Giordano
I'm not sure how many people would consider ambient music to be romantic, but I definitely think the best of it can be (depending on your definition of romance). Swedish instrumentalist Viktor Sjöberg must also think so. On the sleeve of this recording, he writes: "'On a winter's day' tells the story of living with the sweetest human being in the world. This music is an attempt to reflect this experience through acoustic guitar. The setting is Gothenburg, Sweden." It's quite charming to know this while listening, because rarely does quiet, minimal landscape music seem (at least overtly) to be inspired by love. Sjöberg's music is mostly built around processed guitar tones, and he sure makes them glow throughout this CD. There's often a distinct acoustic guitar in the mix, but sometimes the timbre of the instrument is almost unrecognizable. The standout track "Further variation" creates a spellbinding mood out of a simple repeating guitar interval, layered keyboards (or is that densely processed guitar?) and some lo-fi static. "24:00" is punctuated by muted snatches of trumpet and a bit of glitchy electronica, building on a rather mesmerizing airy drift that seems to commence about halfway through this record. The heartfelt title "The sensation of your head on my chest" and the truly blissful "Protect you from all evil" have that inner glow that the best ambient music offers the patient listener, reminiscent at times of Eno's early work. Other pieces such as "Something to be learned from a rain storm" favor Sjöberg's minimal guitar plucking and tend to be under three minutes long. This is not hi-tech stuff, and you have to be willing to go with its languorous drift to really appreciate it. But a peaceful heart beats within this music, and it has numerous moments of warmly enveloping ambient beauty.
- Kevin Renick
Avi described this band as "like the Caesars, only Finnish" and frankly I'm having a hard time coming up with a better snappy summary of this duo's second full length release. Like their aforenamed Swedish brethren, Tigerbombs (not to be confused with British band Tigerbomb) play short catchy pop songs influenced by 60s garage rock, heavy on the organs. They describe the record as more like adolescence than adulthood, and it does brim with teenage punk energy (think Buzzcocks or Undertones). It's an innocuous enough record - fun, catchy, energetic -- but ultimately the songs do a better job of suggesting the pop classics they could be than they do of achieving that perfection. Still, it's a nice release, and I wouldn't be surprised if they sharpened up their song writing and put out a brilliant fourth or fifth record one of these days.
- Nancy Baym
Tract Records really knows how to put together a pretty good split and by doing it with four artists they really know how to maximize the releases' potential. It begins with two stellar contributed by Kristofer Åström, who gives two solid tracks (on top of the four he'd already released this year). I had come to the conclusion long ago that this man should be releasing albums whenever he wants, and this gives him the opportunity to. Stylistically, Racingpaperplanes is the perfect segue into the rest of the split, with a beautiful acoustic number right after KÅ's numbers, followed by more fleshed out efforts, but still retaining the soft, somberness. Boy Omega brings all to the table with perhaps the album's most spectacular track in "Fool around". The composition of this song is absolutely gorgeous with its subdued melody, but by contributing four songs, one feels like maybe it's a little heavy ("For I cannot breathe" could have been dropped, mainly for continuity purposes). Two Times The Trauma closes out the session with two rather moody electronic-influenced tracks and an acoustic number in the middle, yet the acoustic track makes the most sense on this album and in my eyes is the far superior of the songs.
- Matt Giordano
In case it wasn't totally obvious from the cover art, this is a heavy slab of fuzz-heavy stoner-rock. Two bands, six songs each, a grand total of just over 60 minutes of music. Since I consider Black Sabbath to be the greatest band ever, I can def get into this, but since I also tend to prefer later Ozzy-era Sabbath ("Sabbath bloody sabbath", "Sabotage" and yes, even "Never say die"), I'm kinda lukewarm on this disc. As with most stoner-rock, this stuff leans much more heavily on early Sabbath - all bludgeoning power chords and heavy doom'n'gloom atmosphere. I can dig it, but it's also been done to death and doesn't touch upon all the other reasons that made Sabbath so amazing. Trouble figured it out with "Manic frustration". It can be done. So before I run my mouth off with a treatise on my favorite band, let me leave it at this: Asteroid and Blowback are good bands. This is a good CD. Just not great.
- Avi Roig
I'm convinced that alien DNA has somehow gotten into a bunch of Swedish musicians recently, and they may not know it. The very odd sounds and arrangements being generated by bands like The State of Floral Beings, The Knife and The Bear Quartet just can't be explained merely by saying "they're hard-working musicians and they're looking for new sounds." I defy anyone who listens to "Eternity now", the brand-new Bear Quartet CD, not to tell me that something not quite of this realm is driving the band. Holy smoke, is this thing wild and uncategorizable. I chuckled at a description of these guys online as "Sweden's most legendary pop band." What you hear on this CD bears only a tangential relationship to traditional "pop." Let's start with the mindblowing 21-minute centerpiece "Bear Quartet International Airport". This is one crazily brilliant, jaw-dropping track that kept me up half the night in awe. It starts with a jagged, killer guitar riff that burrows into your brain, ferocious drumming and an overall sense of sonic abandon before zigging and zagging through uncharted musical terrain. There are tempo shifts, just a snatch of weird vocals and a beautiful section where all the music sounds bowed (even though it's probably done on a synth). Honestly, this piece sounds like it's attempting to reinvent prog rock for the new millennium, and I'm not gonna argue against that. Thrilling stuff. Elsewhere, the short "Broken heart" and ultra-strange "The repairing of the Red Sea" utilize innovative pitch-shifting on the vocals, a technique used by Ween and Iceland's Eberg, but still in its infancy as far as the creative possibilities. It's a delight to find Bear Quartet exploring this sort of terrain. "Sailors" has a fairly simple rhythm track and synth, but then proceeds to alienate the general listening public (although not ME) with a high, moaning vocal that is clearly NOT the work of a band with record sales as their top priority. And there are several percussion-heavy tracks like "Where I cried," as well as a spooky ambient instrumental called "Peders forlat," which goes even further in making this platter hard to summarize. You can almost hear them laughing at the listener's expectations. Bear Quartet have made a dozen CDs and umpteen EPs over the years; "Eternity now" is clearly one of their weirdest and most delerious. Yes, that's a thumbs up.
- Kevin Renick
Galento, a Swedish act who are brave enough to cheerfully explore the mostly uncharted terrain where instrumental pop/rock and film music overlap, have done themselves proud on this new release. "From the sea" is a real charmer of a disc, avoiding formula at almost every turn and providing a soundtrack for almost any soft-focus scenario you choose to imagine. Me, I pretended I was driving around some small village in a foreign country, occasionally getting disoriented but always reassured by the smiling faces of the locals. The film music influence is obvious: you can hear strains of Angelo Badalamenti on "Gunnar Hardings Paraply" (which is genuinely hypnotic with its repeated dreamy horns and surreal ambiance) and a touch of Morricone on the short, but evocative, keyboard-laden "She was an excellent driver". The 12-minute "2005... and the moon still turns the tide" is the obvious highlight, and I've coined the word 'psychedelicate' to describe this lush, panoramic, constantly changing moodscape. This isn't rock music, but it's definitely compelling, stirring aural scenery, with something new around each bend. I could've done without the occasional spoken word interludes on this disc, but that minor grumble aside, this is rather warm, transfixing music perfect for kicking back in your recliner to, or for complementing a scenic drive through unfamiliar territory--which pretty much sums up what this lovely recording is.
- Kevin Renick
The style of music offered up by Namur, essentially the solo project of Sweden's David Åhlén, deserves a good, descriptive name. I'm sick of words like "slowcore" and "shoegaze" to describe this style of heavily atmospheric, churning melancholia. But there may be no substitute for "electro ambient dream pop," the title of a real Yahoo! group. That's pretty accurate, so let's go with it. "Songs from the valley of Baca" is the third Namur release and it's a thing of fragile beauty. Rather minimal, with some fuzzy, My Bloody Valentine-style guitar drone and superb drumming complementing Åhlén's soft, compellingly shy vocals. "Consuming fire" and "Marching" are exceptionally fine, emotionally stirring tunes (especially the keening vocal on that latter track), and again I have to mention the beauty of the drums... clean, loud and hypnotic a la John Bonham. The vocals are mixed almost in the background, like they're just part of the blissful, foggy ambience. "Vesper" is a solemn, beatless song which is deeply melancholy... you'll get as lost in thought as the singer seems to be if you just drift with this wisp of a tune. And "Brighter than the sun" sounds uncannily like Sigur Ros, just a bit less lush; but the textural organ and little snowflake synth flurries are quite captivating. And the vocal's emotive power is doubled here. Rebekkamaria from Lampshade provides harmonies on one track, but otherwise, this is a pretty singular affair, and it's as light as a dream. Very pretty, haunting music worth drifting off to sleep to...
- Kevin Renick
I don't know if there's a proper term to describe what Noxagt exactly is. When I listened to their third release on Providence, Rhode Island's Load Records, the only word I could think of was 'intense'. I had an assumption of what to expect with this record when I saw it was a Load release: it was definitely going to be noisy and maybe even challenge me to enjoy it (which I did.) Although some may think that seven tracks is a bit short for an album, Noxagt make effective use of this by playing unrelenting instrumental/sludge rock in the vein of bands like High on Fire and labelmates Lightning Bolt. Each track pummels into the listener's ear as bass, drums and spring-loaded guitar combine to create droning soundscapes that get progressively more violent and intense as you listen.
- Navy Keophan
Sweden's Victims were another Havoc Records band I managed to miss while they were on tour (the first was Regulations - d'oh!) Listening to their latest release gave me a taste of what to expect if I ever see them live. "Divide and conquer" is a testament to early '80s American hardcore bands. What's with the Swedes that makes them play something that sounds like it's over 25 years old, but yet still modern? Anyhoo, 15 tracks of American hardcore/Swedish crust-inspired punk that'll get you amped. Think of Discharge when you listen to this. Singer Johan's vocals and the band are balanced pretty well with one not overpowering the other. Not what I would normally listen to, but it kept me interested.
- Navy Keophan
Viktor Sjöberg
Various Artists
The Bear Quartet
Namur