The Charade

Along with a number of other unproductive things, I decided to spend my weekend (this was written several days ago) reviewing various Scandinavian artists people have suggested to me over the past few months, but who I have, for one reason or another, mostly ignored. This is a weird fault of mine -- because almost always when something is suggested to me, I wind up enjoying it at least a bit. Even so -- today, I’m only going to write about one of them: The Charade, my favorite of the lot (aside from Kent. But I’ll talk about them later).

Within the first five seconds of the first song, Monday Morning, I could tell I was going to be in love. Fairly quickly, their sound reminded me of Club 8 (and right now, comparing someone to Club 8 is about the highest compliment I give) but after further listening, I decided they were akin more to Club 8’s labelmates Sambassadeur -- who, by the way, release their newest album, Migration, TODAY. They also remind me quite a lot of Free Loan Investments, a sadly now-extinct band from Sweden. The Charade (who, coincidentally enough, are also from Sweden) have a very lush, poppy sound, which at the same time is more jangly than smooth and sweet. I’m not very good at describing music -- but I do wish I’d discovered this band in spring or summer, rather than mid-fall; they seem more of a warm-weather band. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with listening to summery music in the wintertime.

In addition to to the aforementioned Monday Morning, you can listen to three songs -- two from their most recent album, A Real Life Drama, and another guest spot which will appear on an upcoming album by Beatfanatic -- on myspace… There’s also the option to buy more music, which is incredibly tempting -- I’d like very much to hear a lot more from this band.

--DL--
Monday Morning (the Charade)