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