ready, scandenavia, go!

Fanfarlo – Harold T. Wilkins

Here’s a couple from Scandenavia.  Fanfarlo first.  I’m not even sure how to pronounce their name.  Fan-far-low I assume.  Anyways they’re good.  They’re good in that good indie-rock staple sounding sort of way.  You know what to expect, what with the verse-chorus-verse deal and penchant for background horns at rising moments and good but don’t-quite-come-through-clearly vocals (not to mention the female background vocal accents).   Can’t decide if I love’m or if they’re just too “generally good” for me.

The other thing about them — for some reason after a few listens I get the sense that the album sort of sounds more like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! as it moves forward (decide for yourself with the above, track number nine out of eleven).  As an additional side note, they cover NMH as well as I’ve heard.

Donkeyboy – Ambitions

Apparently this song is huge over in Sweden, and it should be because it’s a good single.  Unfortunately, they’ve got the Silversun Pickups/Delays quandry of can’t-tell-if-it’s-a-girl-or-a-guy, and the plot thickens cause I think the girl sings the chorus and does overlapping backups on the guy’s verses.   But also the girl isn’t actually listed as a band member… I don’t think.  Not that the gender of artist or singer should really have an impact on the reception of the music, but in the case of this song, when the first vocal line hits there’s a bit of cringe factor–it starts real high, sounds shrill, makes you reach for the orange earplugs, makes you think, oh — is it a girl or a guy?.  But when I’m on the second line I’m hooked; shit has a nice groove and the developing melody gets you into it.  The chorus begs another listen, then another, and another.  Not sure how much longer this band is going to stand up with just a hit single in Sweden, but they’ve got the right stuff.  And anyways the video is good concept/execution, especially since the band playing at the support group has a dry humour delivery rather than ruining the video on principle.