From the tiny island of Giske off the coast of Norway, this band of brothers and cousins take their name from the postwoman who delivered their mail-order Beatles albums and Madchester era British indie releases back in the day. Now chart-toppers in their native land, their absorbing take on the UK indie sound is showcased in this promo that combines a selection of tracks from their first two albums, ‘What Kept You’ and ‘Love Will Haunt You Down’, demonstrating why the band were XFM uploaded winners.
Consider ‘In The Wrong Arms’. Easy harmonies are poured over shimmering petals of guitar: warm and melodic rays of summer sunshine are refracted through splashes of Hammond organ and tempered by easy, shuffling percussion. This is classic indie pop at its chiming, dreamy, luscious best.
Their narrative songwriting style is vintage stuff, innocent rather than naïve. Huge rolling kettledrums boom before the pulse is reduced to the hiss of the snare.
In ‘Twenty Years Erased’, the beat dominates the tune as the melody oozes out from underneath. Discordant guitars chime over the faint acoustic as it clicks. Likewise, the shuffle of brushes steady the classic key change pop of ‘Come Around’ as it marks out a distant horizon.
‘One Stone Mountain’ is enhanced gently by a string arrangement and an acoustic arpeggio reverb makes the core glow. A wall of guitar is dropped like a bomb, pregnant pauses and hazy tempos shift and smoulder.
During the mini-epic ‘67’ the arpeggio is crystal clear as it threads through gentle high gain feedback and the piano’s high keys, whilst the hook line breathes:
“Give me sixty seven / painkillers”
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Debut single ‘Alain Delon’ is an undoubted highlight: reaching No.2 back home, this perfect sweeping harmonica jangle-pop creates a fractal-drenched space, from where compressed backing vocals holler from deep within as if they were thoughts out loud. Sleigh bells usher the luscious melody into a whirlpool of dizzy wah FX and slurping water-down-the-plughole noises. Harmony rich and full of warm, gentle brass sounds this one’s a total corker.
It’s like the eighties revisited when the tremelo arm gets a bending during ‘She Caught The Last Bus Home’. With the Terry Hall vocal and the creak of the blipped-out keys, odd percussion and a 4/4 beat that weighs heavy on the heartstrings. This song comes with the realisation that you could be listening to the next big Indie-thing
There’s also the Mandrax ceilidh intro to ‘In Any Crowded Room, together with that sighing tempo, whilst ‘The Woods’ has a home-recorded acoustic intro that slants everything like a demented sixties cartoon. This made for absolutely fantastic listening, eccentric and melodic throughout, with a stayed half-stepping pulse that shunts the real world into the realms of a vast dreamscape.
‘Last Night On Earth’ is weightless and inevitable. This is one hell of a calling-card: theirs is a vintage approach - one that delightfully revives a classic pop sound.
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