They're calling her the electro-goth princess, and Sweden's Karin Park certainly has the allure of royalty to her, albeit in a deliciously outre, icy Bjork-esque way. Imagine a much grittier, dirtier version of Robyn, where the electronics throb with a brute-cut intensity. Synth-lines slap across fractured beats, frothing with barely contained energy, with Park's vocals sensuously trailed over all the while. Taster track Fryngies (from her upcoming album Highwire Poetry) plays out as if from the bowels of some darkly hidden club recessed away in the underbelly of some imagined cyber-punk city. Tiger Dreams takes a more systematic approach, injecting itself with burbling 8-bit bleeps and hissing, sibilant bass. It's haunting stuff, like the grip of skeletal fingers closing on a pumping heart, the lifeblood chilling away in the veins. Park's music is all this, all the macabre and theatricality of the gothic princess, but aligned to the all the possibilities of the quirky electro-songstress.
Sweden's Same Old Story come with a distinct youthfulness as part of their make-up. It's there in their papery, colourful artwork, and it's there in their music too.
Keening yells of raw emotion propel this fiery, remarkably consistent batch of pop-punk tracks - everything feels speedy; guitar, bass and drums all blending into one unified force.
It's a battering ram of sound, a sonic assault that comes reinforced with a strong sense of the band knowing exactly what kind of album they want to make.
In 2009 the band released their taster EP Waste Of Time, and combined with their name itself - Same Old Story - there is a constant notion of urgency in everything they do.
The intention is clear, a straight-out fight against any kind of stagnation, a malaise so often present in debut rock albums. And thankfully, stagnation is something this record never falls prey to.
Early highlights Another Reason and Don't Blame The Penguins see the band at their most melodic, riding high on powerful guitar solos - the latter even finds time to launch into a bizarre interlude of circus music.
It's here we see the album's undercurrent of dark humour, bringing a real punchy personality to the tracks. Daily Crime benefits in this respect too, whilst also blending in a muscular bassline reminiscent of the Silversun Pickups.
If there's a 'best track' though, it's to be found in Reality. Standing proud in the album's mid-point, it is the anchor to which the rest of the record can steady itself from.
Sound-wise, the album shares much of its DNA with another incredibly accomplished debut from this year - Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows' self-titled effort, released back in February. Both records feel alive with the enthusiasm of the respective bands' members, the album functioning as a natural extension to their own lives.
A speedy adrenaline shot of cool, A Great Disgrace leaves you breathless in its wake; a fitting manifesto for a band plainly brimming with ambition.
In terms of what's in-vogue at the moment, there's a definite trend for all things Swedish. Just look at the mega success of Stieg Larsson's brilliant Millennium trilogy in both book and film formats. But here, we turn our attention to the music of that fair country in the form of singer-songwriter Charlotte Eriksson, also known as the GlassChild.
Even the name conjures up images of something delicately fragile, spectral and haunting. There's an ethereal beauty to Charlotte's vocals that speaks straight from the heart. She knows how to make every word count, how to tear the emotion from every syllable. Previously described as a punk version of Bjork and compared to Paramore singer Hayley Williams, her music is about as organic and natural as it comes.
Creepy Little Story is a real joy, one of those instantly pleasurable, chilled-out listens that whatever your current state of mind, sets you at complete ease with the world. Charlotte's voice is impressively strong, particularly in the ad-libs in the second half of the song.
Play Pretend presents a more attitude-laden side to the singer, kicking in with a satisfying crunch of electric guitar. There's a strong sense of Amy MacDonald to this one, Charlotte possessing that same untamed, windswept passion that finds it way into both her voice and music. These are songs of the air and the earth, as if the very spirit of nature has been distilled into these recordings.
Singer-songwriter has become something of a dirty word in recent years, but Charlotte brings it back to what it should be about; strong melodies and a constant emphasis on the talent contained in the tracks. In a competitive world, you don't have long to leave your mark, but Charlotte makes certain she does; Play Pretend in particular biting in, latching on to your senses.
Also marking Charlotte out from her contemporaries is the energy - there's no sitting on your laurels lazily strumming away on a guitar here. It's here that the Paramore comparisons hold the most weight; I'm Hidden So Well in particular infused with the spirit of punkiness that Hayley Williams has made a career out of channeling. Yet even in the hardest, most angsty moments of the music, songs like I'll Never Tell see Charlotte maintaining a constant sweetness to her vocals - imagine early Avril Lavigne back when she was delivering impassioned emo-pop ballads.
Speaking of her music, there are some really nice quotes from her too like "I think you have to decide what kind of person you wanna be. Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story." How poetic.
It's not often a music video really knocks you for six and makes you go WOW. But this one sure does. It's part of a movement a number of bands are going for recently where they hold an open competition for fans to create their own video for their latest single and the best one gets the accolade of becoming the 'official' video, going on to be serviced to the media etc. It cuts down costs for the band/record label and the fans get a cool competition and potential massive-kudos, acclaim and all round feeling of amazingness if their entry is chosen as the winner.
And so we have OMD's new single History of Modern (Part 1) - directed by Sweden's Lapantafilm, I love their stop-motion approach to the video. I don't know how long it must have taken to film but the end result is absolutely incredible. The references to past OMD album covers is very cool too, as is the a-ha Take On Me vibe that the whole thing has. Brilliant stuff.
