It’s long been my opinion that anything Johan Angergård touches magically turns to gold. This belief has stood strong with all his projects, from The Legends to Acid House Kings. Club 8 has consistently come third on that list, but with “Western Hospitality” from the forthcoming The People’s Record, everything is about to change. It’s not that The Boy Who Wouldn’t Stop Dreaming didn’t have merit — it most certainly did. It just wasn’t as powerful as more recent albums by the other two, Over And Over …

My first impression of the first track off Sambassadeur’s new LP, European, is that the song is easily their finest yet. With an emotive piano intro and outro, orchestral pop sensibilities, and schizophrenic percussion, “Stranded” seems to be a turning point for the band. Sambassadeur has always been a group to flaunt instrumentation, but here it’s never been as clear and forward, from the strings that enter as the introductory piano fades, to the deep clarinet solo just past the midpoint.

Beginning with a sample (bonus points if you can pinpoint that voice) and leading into The Radio Dept.’s now signature eletro-pop meets fuzzed out, jangle-worthy synth lines, “Heaven’s On Fire” promises great things for the band’s forthcoming record Clinging To A Scheme. It carries on precisely where the band headed post the release of their second LP, Pet Grief; songs like singles “Freddie And The Trojan Horse” and “David”.

Oh I’m loving this! It’s the new video by (what seems like) Sweden’s only native-tongue-singing band [ingenting]. The song is “Dina händer är fulla av blommor” and it’s one of their catchiest yet, easily matching prior favorites like “Syster dyster”, “Har kommer solen” and “Slapp Inb Solen”. A loose, very poor translation (no thanks to very poor online translation systems) could be “In Your Hands Full Of Blossoms” or possibly even “Your Hands Are Full Of Blossoms”. It’s a sad song, one full of longing and …

Here’s an amazing little video by Sweden’s Little Big Adventure. True to the band’s name, “Happiest Times” features a man on a journey in the more unconventional of senses. What makes this a good video is the near eerie way it progresses, with time sped up and a good concept: the character moves forward on his stomach with flowers and a briefcase, a wanderer roaming the countryside.

With an orchestral intro fit for Camera Obscura, Sambassadeur’s “Days” sees the band returning to their roots and expanding their inclusion of strings. With “Days”, Sambassadeur hands over yet another great pop song and their best vocal hook since “Between The Lines”. Buried in a 70s folk-pop influence and including an upbeat shuffle in the percussion, Sambassadeur is sure to please fans of Belle & Sebastian and fellow Swedes and label-mates Acid House Kings. The song is off their new album European, due out next February. …

Hanging on the wall in my living room are six album covers and the one closest to my leather rocking chair – where I write the majority of the items I post on FensePost – is Starlet’s Stay On My Side from 1999. Songs like “At Least In My Heart” and “In The Disco” were the soundtrack to my summer of 2006, along with the title track off When The Sun Falls On My Feet, their 2002 follow-up. The latest news is that the Starlet crew is back …

Longtime fans of Sweden’s pop music scene will recognize the Club 8 name as belonging to one of Labrador Record’s most appreciated artists. The duo of Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt have been making music under the moniker since the mid 90s, and have released six full-length LPs. What sets this new album apart, however, is that Angergård will not produce it — and that’s a first for the band. Instead, Jari Haapalainen (Peter Bjorn & John, Camera Obscura, The Concretes) will be the producer.

Shortly after giving us Dare, a brief three-song single, The Mary Onettes continue their reign of dark, heavily 80s-influenced pop with a new LP dubbed Islands. “Puzzles” is the first single and it’s adorned with thick melancholy vocals and a sound that is instantly reminiscent of 80s greats like The Church and Echo And The Bunnymen.

Of the seemingly countless Swedish artists/groups I follow, rarely does one surface that sings in the native tongue. They instead tend to favor English. [ingenting] is one of the rarities and their new track “Halleluja” is packed with beautiful pop melodies and a title even the English-only speaking individuals on this side of the Western world can understand. Whether you can comprehend the rest of the words, however, is of little significance — the melodies are enough to carry the listener away, and there are more than enough …