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

Vaganza Trailerpark, hailing from Malmö, released their second EP in the end of last year, “…and you will know us by the trailer of pink feathers”. It’s an energic rock that doesn’t rest many seconds during the five songs. Heavy blues rock, stoner rock, garage rock and a lot of vibes from back in time like for example in “I Know That Radio” where I imagine Jefferson Airplane, but rawer and heavier. Another ingredient is punk rock, which you can hear most of in the song “Vaganza Dynamite”, which is featured here below.

The band name was created on Walpurgis Night in 2009, when the singer Jessica Bergkvist and the guitarist Anders Jönsson was sitting in a bar in Malmö, talking about the band they were planning to start:

We talked about expression, colours and “style”. Words like trailer-trash, trailer, 70’s, flowers, rainbows and laughter came up… And then the word VAGANZA,,, -Oh so beautiful, oh so extraordinary! – Vaganza it is! The second word: “Trailerpark” came by itself… from the brainstorming and the words that made us laugh a little extra… Vaganza Trailerpark was perfect in the mouth and therefore felt – SO PERFECT =)
– Jessica Bergkvist (translated from Swedish)

You can find more info and music on the band’s site and on Facebook. They are also on Spotify and similar services.

Vaganza Dynamite

Leo Kall always speaks the truth. He is settled on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons, and is recording various sound phenomenas from the planetary system. He sends these cryptic recordings, through a big radio tower, to a band in Skåne, Sweden. With this material also comes a few honest lines with his impressions from the situation here on earth. The band, Leo Kall, interprets what they are sent and create music from it on stage.

This is the setup for the band Leo Kall‘s music, which is a setup inspired by Karin Boye’s novel Kallocain. And the Swedish lyrics, with their truths about our lives, are the focus of the songs, backed up by some unpolished indie rock.

Their latest work is called “Newtons lagar” (“The laws of Newton”) and was released in December last year. You can listen to and download this EP on Leo Kall’s Bandcamp page. You can also find the band on Facebook and on Spotify.

Newtons lagar

The Tranq, hailing from Örebro, recently released their debut EP “Peninsula”. It’s an EP and a sound with the roots firmly set in the eighties dramatic alternative rock/pop: the big rooms, the guitar sound, the snare drum, the lead synths, the male choirs and the drama expression in the vocals. And good for us they don’t take it too far, but pour some indie vibes into the mix as well, creating their own sound.

About the band name they tell me that they liked the harsh pronounciation of the name and the touching points with the song lyrics, which they want to be imbued with a subtle and calm social criticism.

You can listen to the four songs on their Soundcloud page or on Spotify. You can find the band on Facebook and on their site.

Kalinga

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