Label: Around Your Neck
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"Vague language" alone is testament to the fact that there was enough of value in 90s music for Murmansk to draw from, to combine into their own register, and this second track of "Chinese locks" flickers alive in ways that I can only remember moments of Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins songs comparing to. The opening title-track prepares listeners for an onslaught similar to that of Mew's "And the glass handed kites", where equal emphasis is placed on the energies of the guitar and drum work, in the end building up an intriguingly thick soundscape of instrumentation. The first breakdown of "Nothing but the moon" is one of the more epic interludes I have heard in a while, not necessarily in its scope, but in its execution: resounding, thunderous drums punctuating layered guitars, wisps of soft vocals floating just above the fray; and this theme is repeated throughout the remaining breakdowns of the song. This amalgamation of the grunge themes of the 1990s with the more expansive sound of acts like Mew is worked and reworked throughout the album, the focal influence shifting all the way through, and thus it never starts to feel formulaic.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
7
Another solid member of the Around Your Neck family, home also to Johnny Superhero, Pestida feel like an uncovered relic from that box of albums you bought in the 1990s. Like Johnny Superhero's "Choices", "Surface parallel" feels like a beginning, akin to their 90s influences instead of synthesizing them into a 'redefined' sound. This recalls the beginning of the 'emo' and post-hardcore scenes, wonderfully oblivious to the years and years of music that has been released since Pavement's "Brighten the corners" or the efforts of bands like Mineral and Knapsack. This album is not for everyone: the vocal delivery could easily catch some ears as too quirky or off key, the songwriting's solidarity with the bands of the mid- to late-90s might seem outdated to some, but if these obstacles can be overcome, "Surface parallel" has much to offer. If you need more evidence, find the track "Another circle" and listen for yourself. It will make you miss those flannel shirts you donated to the Salvation Army and long for the nights you spent as a teenager staring up at your ceiling, listening to Sunny Day Real Estate, missing someone.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
8
Starting with Downstairs' "Oh father", I rounded off my week of new music with another Finnish act - Johnny Superhero - and successfully reverted back to the 19 year old I was in 2003. A strange, though very coherent mix of the early indie rock sounds of Failure, Mineral, Archers of Loaf, and, to a lesser extent, Pavement, "Choices" could easily have come out anytime between 1995 and the early 2000s, though this 'dated' element only adds to the album's charm. Instead of being enjoyed from a somewhat detached, archaeological standpoint, Johnny Superhero make their recreation of the early steps of indie engaging and unique. "Time" could almost pass as a Bear Quartet song, breaking at its midpoint in a distinctly similar way to how "Parking lot" ruptures in being at the end of Mineral's "The power of failing". "Schiphol" continues along in a similar vein, though also harkens back to Last Days of April's early, slower recordings. If you remember this transitional stage of music, the shift from grunge to art-rock and the avant-garde, from hardcore and punk rock towards music that is far more comparable to the efforts of today's scene, then "Choices" is worth more than just a few minutes' examination.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Murmansk
Pestida
Johnny Superhero
