This is the new Sambassadeur video, filmed by label mate Philip Ekström of The Mary Onettes and staring Ekström’s eight-year-old nephew Mattis. “I Can Try” is your standard Sambassadeur tune; the band consistently produces great Swedish pop music in the vein of their prior work, each new single slightly better than the last. And each new single is unbearably catchy, yet contains a hint of sadness. The video is an interesting one, reminiscent of a lonely childhood filled with unique realities and a world view much too mature …

OK, I love this. True to recent videos by The Legends, a band fronted by Johan Angergård who also appears in Club 8, the video for “Western Hospitality” features dancing in a manner you wouldn’t typically expect. First, the mystic and masterful electro tune “Lucky Star” off Public Radio, then again briefly on “Always The Same” off the recent Over And Over. “Western Hospitality” is the latest hit by Club 8 and once again Angergård and counterpart Karolina Komstedt incorporate dancing into a video, this time by a …

Sweden’s Pallers gave us the critically acclaimed “Humdrum” a year or two ago, and backed the single with a few remixes of the song. Time has passed, and they’ve finally blessed us with a new tune, this one dubbed “The Kiss”. The song flirts with the same chill, DJ-inspired electronica of “Humdrum” but there seems to be a bit more depth to the track. It’s emotive, like its predecessor, but it also contains a bit more warmth.
States Labrador Records, who released the Humdrum single and …

Listening to much of The Mary Onettes growing breadth of work, one gets the impression they are surrounded 80s LPs, and that this is where they draw influence. From Echo to The Church, Go Betweens to The Smiths, this band pulls all the right elements to create one of the freshest sounds around today. The latest tune from these Swedes is “The Night Before The Funeral” and it’s right up there with past hits like “Dare” and “Puzzles”. Opening with a heavy guitar strum which soon gives …

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.