Before, Johan Reinhold made hip hop music under the name Fall One, and in 2008 he released the album “Behind Blue Eyes”. Now he’s changing his route and is coming out with something quite different. At least if I’m considering the first single track, the excellent “Shoot Me Down” from the upcoming album “Beautiful Loser”, where he instead present some melancholic singer/songwriter pop.

Listen to the song below or together with four remix versions on his Soundcloud page. You can also find Johan on Facebook.

Shoot Me Down

I wrote about Profetian about a year ago. The project has taken shape and recently the duo released the EP “Stormen i SÃ¥gmon”. Now they sing entirely in Swedish and they call it doomsday pop and lo-funk. I’d like to add blackness and vibes from Swedish progressive music to this description.

According to the singer Christoffer Johansson, the name Profetian (“The Prophecy”) sort of grew out of the development of the songs, as these became darker and more serious. Christoffer wrote a poem with the name “Profetian”, with a content that in short meant “Everything’s going to hell, if we don’t shape up”. Since this ended up being an undertone in the songs they took it as their band name.

Profetian has a Facebook page and you can listen to and download the EP on Bandcamp.

Gråljus

Tobias Bergholm’s solo project, Lovers Forgive Me, is back with a new EP, “400 slag” (“400 Beats”). This EP differs quite a bit from the debut EP I wrote about earlier. The lyrics are now entirely in Swedish and the album feels more coherent. It’s also a different kind of darkness in these songs that have vibes partly from eighties’ new wave and partly from Swedish pop melancholy with a strong expression. And the songs have quite strong hooks too, especially the title song “400 slag” and the song you can listen to here below, “Kärleksdöden” (“The Death of Love”).

I also took the opportunity to ask Tobias about the artist name, and he told me that the name came up 6 years ago when a band he had joined was going to be baptised. One of the suggestions was “Lovers Forgive Me”, but in the end another name was chosen. He got the idea when he was working in a clothes shop, where they were contantly playing music. He heard a song from the band Her Majesty with the line “Forgive me, Lovers Forgive Me for I am weak”. Right then, after he had just ended a relationship the words got to him. And when he was going to name his solo project 2 years ago, the line popped up again and just like Her Majesty named their band after a Beatles song, he named his project after one of their songs.

You can follow Lovers Forgive Me on Facebook. The EP is available on Bandcamp or on Spotify.

Kärleksdöden

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

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