I’ve written about Let’s Say We Did a couple of times before here on the blog. Then it was about their EP trilogy, where the last one was released about a year ago. I November they released their first full length album, an album where you will recognize about half of the songs from the the EP:s.

Everything has a new production, though, with Pelle Gunnerfeldt behind the wheel, and I think that he’s done a really good job at refining the band’s nice, rough indie pop. The sound feels more open, with more depth and with a good variation, but still with that rough feeling over these charming pop melodies.

The band name exposes something of their influences, as the singer Sebastian Fors tells me that the name is taken from the song “Let’s Not and Say We Did” by Silver Jews.

You can find Let’s Say We Did on their Facebook page and you can listen on Bandcamp or on Spotify. Here is the first song from the album “It’s OK” plus the latest video “Blue Skies”:

It’s OK

Maybe it was dreams about playing at the biggest arenas, or maybe it was the songs that demanded it. In any case,  Molotov Jive hailing from Karlstad, went to California and to the star producer Sylvia Massy to record their third album “Storm”.

They recorded in February last year and recently, in March, they released the album. And there’s no doubt that this is pop and rock made for the big arenas. Such an ambition can easily end up in a big yawn, if you can’t back it up with energy, personality and great songs, but I don’t think that they fall into any pits here, and that they have created a really good album.

It’s grand and full of energy, first of all in the first half of the album, until they slow it down with the most quiet song on the album “Just Leave”, giving us a well-needed break before they speed up again .The feeling is a bit like U2 when they are as most energetic but with a darker post punk vibe from the late eighties as the foundation. The songs that sticks the most with me is “Friendship”, which you can listen to and download here below, and “Manhattan”.

And of course. How did they come up with the name Molotov Jive? They write that they wanted a band name that felt explosive, something that signaled fire. “We thought that it should be ‘like dancing on fire.’ Do the Molotov Jive”.

You can listen to the album on Spotify and on Wimp. Follow them on Facebook and on their site.

Friendship

Drivvedsfolket, hailing from Norrköping, write that they have developed their sound inspired by artists like Arctic Monkeys, Pugh Rogefeldt, The Black Keys, Florence Valentin, The Kinks et. al. They show this on their latest EP “Vilket Gäng! (“What a gang!”), which you can taste a song from here below. They sing in Swedish and sure, I do get associations from Pugh Rogefeldt as I listen, but also from Bob Hund, Arctic Monkeys and sixties’ rock, which all in all make a special mix.

The band started out in 2009 and sang originally in English. Then they called themselves Driftwood People, suggesting that they were carefree people, living for the day. That was actually an irony, as they claim to be a bunch of nervous and long-winded individuals.
When they later on started using Swedish in their songs, they simply translated the band name directly, creating a new Swedish word. So now you know what drivvedsfolk means in Swedish. Maybe.

You can listen to Drivvedsfolket on Spotify, on Wimp and on Drivvedsfolket’s Facebook page.

En jättetuff tid

Three years ago I wrote about Lo Kivikas as a solo artist. The year after she began collaborating with legendary Bosse Skoglund to record a new album, which later on resulted in the album “Sister Blue” and the band project InLOve.

It’s an intimate story with slow, soft rock and Americana and, as the name suggests, with blues vibes, emphasized by Roland Nilsson’s wonderful harmonica. Even though I feel that the sound is a little to compressed here and there for my taste, overall it’s a strong and emotional album. There’s a lot of room here for Lo’s special voice and expression, a voice that reminds me of Marianne Faithful.

You can listen to the album on Spotify and follow InLOve on Facebook.

Lay Down
Knocked Out

Polar City is a rock trio from Malmö. Originally the band name comes from a party photo from a club, and the band members thought the name sounded cool. The meaning of the name has evolved afterwards, as is often the case, and Polar City today stands for Malmö and the members’ upbringing there.

The latest single contains a couple of hard driving post grunge songs with metal vibes, and if you go back to their debut EP you can find a wider range of influences, here below represented by the song “Killing It Like a Comedian Should”.

You can listen to their music on Spotify and the EP “Right This Minute” is available for free download on their site. You can follow Polar City on Facebook.

Lesbian Trucker
Killing It Like a Comedian Should