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Album Review
by SaschaS
24-6-2004
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| The Concretes: sensual Swedish pop CD |
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The Concretes: 'The Concretes'
(Licking Finger/EMI)
The Concretes: with sensuality from Sweden
There’s always been this Anglo-Saxon elitism toward popular music done by artists whose first language isn’t English. There have been bands that pole-vaulted that prejudice but, alas, these artists - starting with the phenomenon known as ABBA - have had to sing in English. And, in particular, Scandinavians have been offering some interesting bands over several decades.
And here is another one, from Sweden - The Concretes. The shortcut description of their sound is like Hope Sandoval fronting The Velvet Underground and The Ronettes. It is beautiful pop, the kind you only find made by people who have aesthetics on their mind and not a bank balance. This is a slo-mo music, pastoral and narcotic pop that is injected with occasional doses of noises and effects that somehow end sounding very polite.
The official biog: The Concretes formed in 1995 when the three girl members: Lisa Milberg (drums), Victoria Bergsman (vocals) and Maria Eriksson (guitar) started making music together. The group was completed in 2000 after Daniel Varjo (guitar), Martin Hansson (bass), Per Nystrom (keyboards), Ludvig Rylander (clarinet/saxophone) and Ulrik Karlsson (trumpet/euphonium) joined to complete a unique unit of musicians that are capable of extraordinary magic.
The band’s debut, self-titled, album is a work of grandiose beauty that shoots past stratosphere to join angels at a party in Eden’s ante-room. Every song provides so much sensory input it should carry a health warning and is awash with such understatement that only the well-warn word ‘ethereal’ can properly describe it. Produced by the in-demand Jari Haapalainen (International Noise Conspiracy, Ed Harcourt), the album is destined for ‘modern cult’ status.
Victoria’s vocal provides such an incentive to hover between dozing off and wide-eyed dreaming; put on ‘Say Something New’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ (both previous singles), ‘Forces’, ‘Sugar’… And, then comes ‘Miss You’, a cover that turns The Rolling Stones classic into this sublime little daydream rider.
The octet with three girls in the line-up, making this kinda music with so much sensuality… Music like this should even cure - casus belli.
8/10
SaschaS
24-6-2004
The Concretes eponymous debut is released 21 June 2004 by Licking Finger/EMI
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