I wrote about Profetian about a year ago. The project has taken shape and recently the duo released the EP “Stormen i Sågmon”. Now they sing entirely in Swedish and they call it doomsday pop and lo-funk. I’d like to add blackness and vibes from Swedish progressive music to this description.

According to the singer Christoffer Johansson, the name Profetian (“The Prophecy”) sort of grew out of the development of the songs, as these became darker and more serious. Christoffer wrote a poem with the name “Profetian”, with a content that in short meant “Everything’s going to hell, if we don’t shape up”. Since this ended up being an undertone in the songs they took it as their band name.

Profetian has a Facebook page and you can listen to and download the EP on Bandcamp.

Gråljus

I’ve received more great music than ever at the start of this year, and I have a hard time to keep up. I realise that I have to speed up the publication so I won’t end up with a queue that’s too long to handle in the end. I will at least make an effort now, and we’ll see where we land.

Kings Avenue, hailing from Göteborg, is up next. With a name taken from a well known street in the city and inspired by bands like Interpol and The Strokes, they released a three-track EP in the beginning of the year. You can listen to the title track here below.

You can find Kings Avenue on Facebook and all songs are available on Spotify.

It’s Not Fair…But That’s Just Life

Gustav Montelius and his solo project The Fiery Piano is back with a new song, “Pegasus”, which he released last month. A beautiful song, still without the piano, in the same spirit as before but with more space.

If you like this song you should definitely check out his EP, “Sirens”. You can find The Fiery Piano on his site and on Facebook.

Pegasus

Nude Party!, hailing from Malmö, don’t promise any naked bodies on the scene, but apparently the name came from the fact that some of the members used to have a habit of removing their clothes on parties, to enliven things.

And it’s definitely party in this energic, positive music with raw, frenetic hammering, guitars, nice synth figures and happy melodies, in songs that often make me think of Blur.

They have a new EP on the loose, called “And What Are You Gonna Do About It?”, and they plan to record another one soon. Besides four of their own songs on the EP, you’ll also find a surprisingly well-turned-out cover version of Tommy Körberg’s “Judy My Friend” as the last track.

You can find Nude Party! on their site and on Facebook. You can also listen to the EP on Spotify.

And What Are You Gonna Do About It?

Tobias Bergholm’s solo project, Lovers Forgive Me, is back with a new EP, “400 slag” (“400 Beats”). This EP differs quite a bit from the debut EP I wrote about earlier. The lyrics are now entirely in Swedish and the album feels more coherent. It’s also a different kind of darkness in these songs that have vibes partly from eighties’ new wave and partly from Swedish pop melancholy with a strong expression. And the songs have quite strong hooks too, especially the title song ”400 slag” and the song you can listen to here below, “Kärleksdöden” (“The Death of Love”).

I also took the opportunity to ask Tobias about the artist name, and he told me that the name came up 6 years ago when a band he had joined was going to be baptised. One of the suggestions was “Lovers Forgive Me”, but in the end another name was chosen. He got the idea when he was working in a clothes shop, where they were contantly playing music. He heard a song from the band Her Majesty with the line “Forgive me, Lovers Forgive Me for I am weak”. Right then, after he had just ended a relationship the words got to him. And when he was going to name his solo project 2 years ago, the line popped up again and just like Her Majesty named their band after a Beatles song, he named his project after one of their songs.

You can follow Lovers Forgive Me on Facebook. The EP is available on Bandcamp or on Spotify.

Kärleksdöden

Three years ago I wrote about Stefan Leoson and his album “Pennies and Heartaches”. He then also gave me a song as a taste of a follow-up album, that I included in the post. After a while, though, he felt that he ran into a dead-end with the route he was following, and decided to start all over again. He created the artist name HMS Leoson (His Majesty Stefan Leoson), and in January he released the debut EP “The One Man Tribe EP”.

And even if the nice melodies and the big sound are still there, this is a completely different Leoson we’re seeing here. It feels like if the cork has been removed from the bottle and out pours everything that he wants to say and do. It’s darker, rawer and sharper under the name of a character who wants to take on the world. It’s done with tounge in cheek but at the same time it feels honest and direct, a mix of who you want to be and who you’d like to pretend to be.

The EP is actually a first taste of the upcoming album “Superior Being” and the song here below, he describes as a program declaration for the album. You can follow HMS Leoson on Facebook. You can also listen on the Bandcamp page or on Spotify.

Royal Parasite

Music from funk and funk inspired artists is something that I receive more and more of. That they are of such high quality is also fascinating and fun. One of those is the band Dinner For Dinosaurs, hailing from Malmö, who released a three-track EP, “Jurassic Funk”, a little while ago. I hear Jamiroquai, some disco and funk pop from the seventies. Add to this great vocals from Rasmus Viberg who has a tone that reminds of  Jason Kay in Jamiroquai.

The band name was invented when the singer Rasmus was playing around with a “band generator” and wrote “Dinner”. The result was “Dinner For…” in various combinations and since they had joked about dinosaurs betwwen themselves, he made the association, which resulted in a name they all thought was a fun and suitable name.

You can listen to more songs and follow the band on Facebook. The EP is also available on Spotify.

About This Girl

Despite the french sounding band name, the band Lé Betre don’t hesitate to dig deep down into the dirty blues rock soil on the new EP “Gentlemens Club Cabin”. It’s a nice raw, almost stoner rock-vibing sound, which is fronted perfectly by Marcus Jonssons raspy vocals.

The name in itself has no direct meaning in French. It was invented by drummer Jonas Sahlberg when he was playing with a word during a walk. And the word he was playing with was of course “Lé batteur”, the french word for drummer.

You can listen to the EP on their Facebook page and follow them on their site. The album will be available on Spotify within short. Here’s the first track out of five, “Easy Rider”:

Easy Rider

A couple of weeks ago The Animation, hailing from Göteborg, released their debut album “Dance Into the Unknown”. Here it’s about arena rock with a massive sound and echoing guitars. The sound could be compared with U2, as in the title track “Dance Into the Unknown” or Coldplay, but the songs themselves give me more vibes from american melodic rock. I like them best when they turn up the tempo like in “Overboard” here below.

It was the drummer Johannes who came up with the name The Animation. The others liked it and like in many other cases they let the name mean something afterwards instead, as they for example run animations during the live shows.

You can follow The Animation on Facebook and the album is available on Spotify. Here’s the first single “It’s Late”:

It’s Late

A lot of things have happened to Oh My!‘s sound since I wrote about them two years ago. Back then, they had entered a studio, recorded and mixed five songs in less than 20 hours, while their current productions hardly can be created that fast. They have, since a while back, stepped out of the garage and put themselves on a bigger stage.

The base is still there, though: a feelgood indie with nice melodies and raw guitars. So far they have released a few singles, that have gained quite some traction in for example national Swedish radio, and now on February 29th, they will release a three-track EP on vinyl. Additionally, a week ago, the new song “Fifteen Minutes” was the starting track on a new  collection from their label A West Side Fabrication.

As usual I asked how the band name was born, and obviously it had something to do with Christoffer Walken:

As a celebration to the American actor Christopher Walken’s magical, beautiful hair, the band chose to call themselves “Christopher Walken’s Hair, Oh My!”. They even tried to contact Mr. Walken to check out that he didn’t mind, but to no avail. But pretty soon the guys realised how complicated and unnecessary the long name was. So they settled for the shorter Oh My!
(translated from Swedish)

You can keep track of tha band’s doings on their site or on Facebook, and their songs are also available on Spotify.

Fifteen Minutes

Vaganza Trailerpark, hailing from Malmö, released their second EP in the end of last year, “…and you will know us by the trailer of pink feathers”. It’s an energic rock that doesn’t rest many seconds during the five songs. Heavy blues rock, stoner rock, garage rock and a lot of vibes from back in time like for example in “I Know That Radio” where I imagine Jefferson Airplane, but rawer and heavier. Another ingredient is punk rock, which you can hear most of in the song “Vaganza Dynamite”, which is featured here below.

The band name was created on Walpurgis Night in 2009, when the singer Jessica Bergkvist and the guitarist Anders Jönsson was sitting in a bar in Malmö, talking about the band they were planning to start:

We talked about expression, colours and “style”. Words like trailer-trash, trailer, 70′s, flowers, rainbows and laughter came up… And then the word VAGANZA,,, -Oh so beautiful, oh so extraordinary! – Vaganza it is! The second word: “Trailerpark” came by itself… from the brainstorming and the words that made us laugh a little extra… Vaganza Trailerpark was perfect in the mouth and therefore felt – SO PERFECT =)
- Jessica Bergkvist (translated from Swedish)

You can find more info and music on the band’s site and on Facebook. They are also on Spotify and similar services.

Vaganza Dynamite

The band with the remarkable name We Do Not Negotiate With Terrorists have their base in Göteborg and is fronted by singer and guitarist Ross Downing. Ross comes from England, which also shows in the music, where a distinct Manchester blackness is mixed into a raw indie rock with punk influences and ska vibes.

They have earlier released the EP “Bombing The Underground” and are now working on new material. You can follow the band on Tumblr and on Facebook. The music is also available on Spotify.

The Boy With the Wrong Eyes

Leo Kall always speaks the truth. He is settled on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons, and is recording various sound phenomenas from the planetary system. He sends these cryptic recordings, through a big radio tower, to a band in Skåne, Sweden. With this material also comes a few honest lines with his impressions from the situation here on earth. The band, Leo Kall, interprets what they are sent and create music from it on stage.

This is the setup for the band Leo Kall‘s music, which is a setup inspired by Karin Boye’s novel Kallocain. And the Swedish lyrics, with their truths about our lives, are the focus of the songs, backed up by some unpolished indie rock.

Their latest work is called “Newtons lagar” (“The laws of Newton”) and was released in December last year. You can listen to and download this EP on Leo Kall’s Bandcamp page. You can also find the band on Facebook and on Spotify.

Newtons lagar

Friday night is here and I aim to finish this week by helping you get a good feeling for the weekend. And for this I get help from Six Figure Transatlantic’s new album “The Owl”, which in fact is their debut album, even though they started already in 1999.

I wrote about the band a couple of years ago, and then the album was on it’s way, but you know, if you’re waiting for something good… And good it is, at least if you like soft americana, singer/songwriter and a nice retro sound. If you’ve encountered the band before, you’ve probably heard some of the songs on their earlier EP:s.

It was the singer and guitarist Mattias Dahl who came up with the name, Six Figure Transatlantic. Sick in fever, he read the name on a truck during a subway trip. The band was looking for an unusual name, it sounded sweet for them and they settled for the name. Afterwards it turned out that there weren’t any truck companies with that name; Mattias had misread the whole thing.

To listen to “The Owl”, you can go to Spotify or similar services. The band also has a Facebook page and a home page.

Last Waltz
All Over Town

The Tranq, hailing from Örebro, recently released their debut EP “Peninsula”. It’s an EP and a sound with the roots firmly set in the eighties dramatic alternative rock/pop: the big rooms, the guitar sound, the snare drum, the lead synths, the male choirs and the drama expression in the vocals. And good for us they don’t take it too far, but pour some indie vibes into the mix as well, creating their own sound.

About the band name they tell me that they liked the harsh pronounciation of the name and the touching points with the song lyrics, which they want to be imbued with a subtle and calm social criticism.

You can listen to the four songs on their Soundcloud page or on Spotify. You can find the band on Facebook and on their site.

Kalinga

Around New Year The Virtues released the single “Hope”. A really beautiful ballad which you can listen to and download here below.

“Hope” is the finishing song on the band’s latest album “Beautiful Game”, their fourth one since 2003, and was released last year. I haven’t written about it yet, so I took the opportunity to listen to it now. And I like the album, it’s a good rock/pop-album with a lot of vibes from Big Star and Tom Petty and a dose of early New Wave. I love the intimate sound in the songs; retro, airy and full of good-sounding guitars that have plenty of room to ring out their tones. Add then also Per’s nice rock vocals, good melodies and some interesting adventures like in for example the punk vibing “Liquid”.

You can hear the album on Spotify and you’ll find the band on Facebook and on their site.

Hope

The electronica duo Posttod, which I wrote about a little more than a year ago, is back with a new release. It’s about the 7-track album “Moon”, which you can enjoy on their site. Here’s a range of ideas and textures, from beautiful pieces of ambience to more energetic songs with vibes of synth pop. A really pleasant album to listen to.

The band name is a composition of the word post (in the meaning of after) and the german word for death, tod, which in some view is meant to reflect their thoughts and music.

You can also  find Posttod on Facebook and on Spotify. Here are two songs from “Moon”:

Wild
Under the Stars

Normally you will find Oskar Blondell in the band Ben Hogun as a lead singer, but as a side adventure he has also started the solo project The Forest Green. According to Oskar it’s his own uncompromising art project, where he can test his limits and do whatever he likes.

It sounds like perfect conditions for creating interesting music, and it also shows in his songs. You can listen here below to the first song he published, “Slowmotion”. A couple of days ago he released another, “Only One”, and more are on their way. He also tells me that he’s started a collaboration with the deep house duo Vildmarken, which we will know more about later on. You can follow his music on Soundcloud.

The name The Forest Green comes from the colour of his old favourite cardigan, which he was wearing when he created the first song. He also thought it perfectly described what he wanted to achieve with the project.

Slowmotion

Gone are the echoing reverbs, the 80′s guitars and the big, splashing drums. “Love Forever” is a wonder of genre-blurring fearlessness drawing on ambient textures, avant-garde rhythms and intricate arrangements.

As a taste of the EP, they have released the first song, “Love’s Taking Strange Ways”, which you can listen to and download below. You can find The Mary Onettes on Facebook or on their site.

Love’s Taking Strange Ways

That Tommy Svensson can handle synths we’ve seen before as I wrote about Yngling in the Autumn. He’s also running a solo project in his own name where he explores different electronic domains.

It’s a rather minimalistic, quirky music where he’s also added vocals on several tracks. And the voice, broken, low-voiced gives it al all a quite special injection to the ambience in the music. You can listen for yourself on his Facebook page or on Spotify. Here are two songs:

Moraali
Uneasy