Sibiria
Norrlands Inland
Hybris
There's been a lot of fantastic music released this year, and two tracks that really kept my passion for great music burning have been Sibiria's "Christian Olsson" and "Ljusdal". The first one is a funny and thought provoking diatribe against a Swedish athlete who's taken his money and moved to Monaco. The latter one is actually one of the absolute most astonishing songs of this year, and it's very brave of Sibiria and Hybris (Sibiria's record label) to exclude this hit from the album. Anyway, this album is entirely sung in Swedish, and I wish I could say that this doesn't matter, but it really does matter, since the lyrics play a very important part on "Norrlands Inland". The record is a lot about how it's like growing up in Norrland, which is the northern parts of Sweden and constitutes of 54% of Sweden's total area but only 13% of its population (who said It's a Trap! isn't informative in a non-musical context!?), i.e. it's a pretty lonely and ultimately boring place to live in (I was born way up north in Sweden so I'm allowed to say this). Also, as far as I know, Sibiria is pretty much the same band as Vapnet, so hopefully they'll deliver another fantastic album under that moniker.
- Simon Tagestam
