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

On February 28th The Mary Onettes will release the new EP “Love Forever”. For the first time, they have collaborated with an external producer, Dan Lissvik, which of course also affect how they sound. They write about the change:

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