The Lancaster Orchestra
With help from absent friends
Nonofon
Every week I seem to listen to a new Scandinavian "alt-country" (or whatever you'd like to call this type of music) band (usually of pretty high standard and most often Swedish) that I'm meant to review for It's a trap. Involuntarily I've become something of an expert on this type of music from those northern shores, which is quite cool, but to be honest, I'm getting a bit bored! Bored of good music? How can that be? Well, it's a bit like eating vanilla ice cream week in and week out. Not that exciting, huh? I love American alt-country, but my absolute favourite artists of this genre are people like Will Oldham, Robbie Fulks, and Silver Jews, artists who are subversive one way or another (usually lyrically). What I'm trying to say is that I need some edge, please! You can still be rock'n'roll even though you're playing slow and beautiful music (look at Gram Parsons). When bands follow the standard template (The Lancaster Orchestra's album has "smokey" photos, and song titles like "Bad horse" and "Easy lover" – yawn!). Sure, The Lancaster Orchestra got some pretty fine songs (e.g. "Closingtime will you walk me home"), and they do a cool cover version of The Smiths' "Please please please let me get what I want", but if you're not in a sitting-by-the-fireside-drinking-whiskey mood it can be so booooring that it takes a "fucking" in the lyrics to ("Newfound friends") to wake me up.
- Simon Tagestam