Tag: Sweden

TRACK | The Dirts – Waste Of Time

5/5 golden merles

Sweden’s The Dirts have returned with -II- and what an approachable lament the two singles are so far. Garage punk that is swiftly dirging and adeptly demented, with a greatly calcified soundscape featuring plenty of both sediment and heft to the mix. All that barrage is preoccupied with the ephemeral, that is that which rots; i.e. us.

“Waste of Time” is hitting what it is aiming at on the proto-fringes. The lo-fidelity punches are packed and freshly sealed, formidably there are thuds and kicks galore. It’ll fortify your grave for what’s coming. The bone crushing consistency between the two tracks offered makes the prospect of the full cassette release from Helvete’s Kitchen on the 21st of October something to look forward to. Digital is 60 SEK and tapes for 80 (~$5) on the bandcamp.

TRACK | JJULIUS -Hjärtats Slag

5/5 golden merles

“Hjärtats Slag” is minimalistic but utterly expansive and engaging lo-fi pop rock from Gothenburg. Draped over that nonstop synth hook are the warmth of the entwined dual vocalizations and all that elegantly orchestrated instrumental trickling across the soundscape. As its phases run their sequence adorned in percussive accents and precise detailed accompaniments, everything is fitting or sutured cleanly enough together.

The trail of complimentary facets is tranquil and intoxicating, patterned on that serene trajectory, its orbit, or its inhaling and exhaling; whatever recurrence. The merger of this motion and the theme/text is apparent (titled translates as “Heartbeat”), the systoles and diastoles repeating at a measured, resting rate. Maybe the appeal of all simple melodies is based on the breath pattern of someone you admire in the dark.

The texture of the loop and its diversified extensions keep the track lively throughout and almost endlessly repeatable. The album as a whole is 56 SEK (~$5) for the digital ash in the digital urn. $23 for the vinyl on DFA records.

TRACK | GLUER – The Double

5/5 golden merles

Swedish hardcore garage punk from Stockholm, “The Double” offers some agreeable scourge. It has a highly refined and nuanced wrath of instrumentation with motion itself as the prime mover. The screed concerns the nightly death addendum, an insufficiently examined phenomenon of working the full day in dreams only to then rise the next morning into doing it all over again. Relentless and calculated rock.

Bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free. At least in this humble interpretation, so far as I am able to determine. Maybe form is favored. Then what. The saturation of the vocals is skillfully melded into the accompaniment, cohesive in the assaulting, producing a unified front that can be learned from for anyone looking for a scale to calibrate a balance.

There is a vinyl edition forthcoming on Push My Buttons & Svart Ljud Rekords, stay tuned to those channels. For the time being, €5 will get you the whole digital kit and caboodle.

TRACK | viridian – Vichy Waters

5/5 golden merles

Whereas my favorite track on the album might be dwd001 (Because it did what it was supposed to. Because the introduction introduced. Because I heard it and knew that there would be others worthy of inspection within…), I think that Vichy Waters is the strongest display of what is on offer here.

And that is an excellent sense of melodic craft and structure within the texture of noise-lo-fi rock production.

Immediately, the guitar-lead and the vocal melody are built around the well laid drums and you are granted the soundtrack to your youth. That is, maybe, if you hear it at the right times, in the right places, at the right impressionable moment.

Or maybe also if the plaque of nostalgia hasn’t built a wall around your heart so hard only the finest hooks can pierce it. And, still, maybe even then. It’s as good as any of it’s influences, referenced by name (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Les Rallizes Dénudés) or otherwise embedded.

Give them your krona at an exchange rate paypal finds agreeable.

TRACK | Black Bug – Well Well

Black Bug - S/T
5/5 golden merles

Well, well is a stunning track and, good news, the whole album is built like this. Maybe a full, proper review to come when things settle down a bit.

But Black Bug’s s/t is a well contained rampage of burning saw patterns, choral uproar and properly clobbered digi drums.

15 tracks and no song is longer than 2:08.

Female/Male tradeoff the purging, vocal utterances and I don’t know if any album is as much fun as this is fun.

Name your price.