Absolut Noise – Le Frenglish mp3 blog about the Swedish music scene

To remember

Gustaf Kjellvander was born on 25 April 1980. Today would have therefore been his birthday if he did not die last 5 June.

Here are three live videos from him, one solo, the other ones with his band The Fine Arts Showcase.

Music lasts forever.

Sexy, rock, exciting

Soviac – Fear (video)

Absolut Noise likes to see itself as a blog which is usually before the big wave, i.e. I like to mention songs or bands before the others.

Soviac Back album was released a month ago, was mentionned in the Swedish press and is therefore definitely not “brand new”. Usually, when I’m late (I mentionned the first single of this album though), I don’t waste time to write a useless post. But Soviac is Soviac. A band I do fancy and usually mention with words like “sexy”, “rock” or “exciting”. Well, I could rewrite the same posts I dedicated to them before. Except this return album (the latest one was released a while ago), smartly named “back album”, is the most accomplished record so far.

Usually every rock album holds its “slow songs” fillers (The Vines anyone?). Not this one. From French to Shelo, each song is built as a hit. My favourite one remains Banco, but Pamplemousse or Fear are some strong outsiders. The female/male voices duo is still the best asset of the band. And, yeah, sexy, rock, exciting, etc. A kind of dreamy rock band. Without the Dig! drama.

Paper – You don’t have to be afraid (unreleased song, live video)

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/// Important update : I forgot to point out one important point about this split record: Back to Bargmossen is a Paper’s cover of a Les Big Byrd song, while Ideal Plane is a Les Big Byrd cover of a Paper tune. Both bands even imitated the style of the other band for the record sleeve… ///

This Saturday, Novoton will release a a split 7″ with Paper and Les Big Byrd (go to the release party!). Only two songs, but two great ones. I will not say much about the Big Byrd one, called Ideal Plane, except it is quite an enjoyable one as usual with this band I already mentionned when they were still named “Big Bird”.

Let’s focus on this new unreleased Paper song that you can download in this post (I even think it is a premiere or something). What’s up with my favourite Swedish band? Well, this Back to Bagarmossen amazed me! I was expecting another great tune of theirs, half-punk, half-obsessive, and eventually I got a pop song. But what a hit! It starts like a Broder Daniel sad piece of Cruel Town to evolve into a Broder Daniel Forever thing. Sure there is the “Paper touch” in it, but truly, when I listen to Back to Bagarmossen I immediately think about Whirlwind. And God knows I much I played the BD hit!

All in all, come from nowhere, the tune sounds as one of the best thing released by Paper ever. I guess it would deserve to be on an album.

Oh, I forgot: Paper definitely remains my favourite current Swedish band.

Nevermind the bleach

Terrible Feelings – Intruders (video)

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As you could notice if you have read this blog on a regular basis, I write more in Frenglish than in proper English. Thus, some words are quite hard for me. “Terrible” is one of them. In French “terrible” means, well, “terrible”, but it is also the equivalent of “terrific”, which means quite the opposite in English.

Terrible Feelings are just terrific. I mean “whaoouuuuh”. Maybe “grrrrrrr”. At least “kkkrrr pooovvv bbrrrr”. Or fucking great.

I have been following them since their very beginnings (at least since the 6th of September 2010) and felt immediately under their charms : I wrote two and a half year ago that they could become a “new Masshysteri”. Since Masshysteri -who released my fav album of 2010- sadly split (or something), Terrible Feelings are now the new “nothing”. Just themselves, which is good enough for me.

Shadows, their debut album, is gonna be released next Wednesday. It is signed on Double Sun the sub label of Adrian Recordings. I have been listening to it a dozen of times today. I was actually very looking forward to it, since their previous singles (The Moon was soooo brilliant and Tied up in my 2011 best of thing) were very very promising.

My opinion about the record? Many great things and one flaw. The flaw? The production. I mean for someone as posh as me, someone who enjoyed that much the songs they did when they were not signed on Double Sun yet, the whole sound of this debut is a little bit too polished and polite. I did love when Manuela – singer of the band – was losing her voice on previous songs such as Blank Heads, The Moon or Trash and burn. On Shadows, cool melodies remain (just listen to and download single Intruders in this post then), the “recipe” is still there, but the whole spirit sounds less “punk”: I confess I would have liked a little bit more grunge.

Ok, ok, maybe it is because I expected a “punk” band and got a “rock” one (which does not mean punk is better than rock music). And ok, ok, most of listeners will discover this band with this record and will totally do not get my point. I know I sound like one of those ridiculous old Nirvana hardcore fan who still pretend Bleach is better than Nevermind cause Smells like teen spirit is too “mainstream”! OMG. Is it actually just cause my little sister who hates punk music loves Shadows?

What the hell! On stage, I’m pretty sure the band will give me the dirt I fancy. And make no mistake, if there is this flaw, the great qualities of the album are the ones to remember. How long as it been since I pressed the repeat button on a record without getting bored? There is pretty much everything a human being with two ears would enjoy. And some hits like my true favourite Days To Come, Intruders or Next Round’s On You. For sure this record is one of the few to remember in 2012. For sure, it is a successful debut. For sure, soon, Terrible Feeling will fill the place left empty by Masshysteri or Bad Cash Quartet. Success is on its way.

Gameboys

Bondage Fairies – 1-0 (video)

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I’m a retrogamer. Amstrad is my religion. And I quite like Gameboy games too, at least Mario or F1Race. I’m not that into 8-bits pop music though. Most of the time, is is funny, yes, but just funny.

Of course, Bondage Fairies could be sum up as a “8-bits pop music” band. But it would be false. Let’s say it is a pop band which happens to have some “gameboy noise” in their songs. Well, the fact they use those funny noises and wear masks like Daft Punk is not a matter of chance: those guys sound totally crazy. And fun. I already wrote in this blog how much their two first albums were really good. This third one, just called “Bondage Fairies”, is a little bit more nostalgic in its lyrics. More important: it is their best one so far.

I mentionned its first single in a previous post. The whole album is as good as that. It was actually released a while ago. But since it is one of the records I played the most in my ipod this year, it deserves few more words. All in all, from Clone to Starsigns (that you can both listen to in this post), this is the kind of pop music – definitely not typically Swedish – to be enjoyed at the very first listen. 9 years old kids are gonna love this. Aliens too. And hopefully you.

NB : Get the album through itunes or there