The trio Automobilist, hailing from Malmö, who last year released the excellent EP “The Collapse“, recently launched the follow-up “Beware of Hunters”. Again they manage to catch me with their energetoc indie rock. Listen especially to the title track here below.

Automobilist on Facebook – on Spotify – on Soundcloud – on Bandcamp

I never say no to new pop songs from Simian Ghost. Here they are with the single “A Million Shining Colours”, a 60’s-vibing tune with a flavour of Beach Boys. It’s the first single from their upcoming album “The Veil”, due for release in Spring.

Simian Ghost’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara – on Soundcloud

Honeymilk have released a number of great singles during the last year, and been one of the house bands on Meadowmusic this year. Finally, a few weeks ago, they released their debut album “Lean on the Sun”, an album I had high hopes for. A bit surprising is that they have chosen not to include their three first strong singles “It Might Be”, “This Time Around (The Gods Won’t Save You) and “Situations of You”, which is understandable, though, as they have chosen to build upon the disted sound they introduced with the last single “Light Entertainment”. The result is a coherent album, but where they still give themselves plenty of space to vary between a rough indie rock’n’roll with a taste of brit pop and some more polished indie pop inspiration. I can’t say that I miss the earlier singles on this tastefully long album with it’s eight tracks; the song material is better than ever, and the latest album single “Sea to Shining Sea” is perhaps their strongest one so far. I think it’s an impressive album debut, well it’s an impressive debut year from the band, and my expectations has been met more than enough.

Honeymilks site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

True to my traditions I’ve collected some new Christmas songs this year also, which I’m going to present here today.

Our friends in Crying Day Care Choir have recorded a Christmas EP with four tracks, called “Christmas Day Care Choir”. What’s extra nice about this is that they are donating all income from the album to Musikhjälpen during this week, i.e. until December 15th. Musikhjälpen is a project run by the public TV and Radio in Sweden each year, collecting money for people in need. This year it’s about women’s rights to survive pregnancies. If you’d like to help the band to help, you can just click download in the player below.

YAST presented their album debut earlier this year and walks out of it with this fine Christmas song, “If Santa Ain’t Real”, accompanied by Alice Boman on backing vocals.

Magnus Bergman has worked hard with releasing singles this year, and it’s only logical that he would make a Christmas single as well. It’s called “Decembernatt” and is a remake of his own song, this time in a duet version together with Kim Vestin.

And it’s great that Brainpool make a comeback after almost ten years of silence, and they do that with this Christmas single “The Last Christmas”:

Tenonsaw, who released the album “Avenging Angels” during the Autumn, also wanted to contribute to the Christmas ambience. Of course they also want to experiment, and they do this by combining Mariah Careys “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and U2:s “All I Want Is You” into this song:

Next up is some lovely classical sounding Christmas jazz from Gunhild Carling, here with her new single “Winter’s Day”:

I’m finishing with celtic punk rockers Finnegan’s Hell, who serve us a Christmas song in the spirit of social realism, as they write, “Drunken Christmas (An Irish Christmas Song)”:

I hope you can find your Christmas spirit in this post; there are quite different versions to choose from here above. Merry Christmas to you, and thank you for coming here reading my posts and most of all for listening to the music.

Division Of Laura Lee have been around for a while, but have taken a long time between albums. On the other hand, if the albums are as good as their fourth album, “Tree”, which was released in Spring, they can take the time they need. A couple of weeks ago they launched the single “Rudderless” from the album, a dense indie rock tune which sweeps into the room like a cyclone, with warning foghorn guitars and a smooth song melody to hold on to. I take the opportunity also to throw in another song from “Tree”, the last single, “Old Gold”.

Division Of Laura Lee on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara – on Bandcamp