Ebon Tale - Sit Down -CDM- (c) 2004 Manus/Dusklight Records
Artist....: Ebon Tale
Album.....: Sit Down
Type......: Maxi
Source....: CDDA
Tracks....: 02
Genre.....: Indie
Label.....: Manus/Dusklight Records
Catalogue#: DUSK002
Encoder...: LAME 3.97
Quality...: VBR kbps / 44.1KHz / Joint-Stereo
URL.......: http://www.ebontale.net/
Tracklist:
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01 Sit Down 03:02
02 This 6 Year Old Feeling 10:23
Total:16,6 MB / 13:25 min
Release Notes:
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Great swedish indie in the veins of Sonic Youth/ early Loosegoats, 2
tracks of wonderful female vocals
Despite its frigid climate, Sweden has one of the hottest, most fecund
music industries in the world right now. It seems like you can't swing
a Hardanger fiddle without smacking yet another new artist from the
Nordic climes. It's difficult to keep with it all (though the brave
souls at àIt's a Trap! are trying, bless 'em) and even more difficult
to sample these bands outside of the usual mp3 snippets. Fortunately,
some Swedish record companies are reviving the lost art of the single,
joining the thousands of indie rockers in other countries who view the
format not as a way to get top 40 airplay, but as an introduction, a
hearty "Hi there!" in whatever language they speak. The format may be
CD instead of 45, but the spirit is the same.
The Ackermans, who hail from the Stockholm suburb of ─ngby, are a
quintet of five young men who've been together since junior high
school. Working in a vein not unlike the great Detroit band the High
Strung (or their own countrymen the Venue, for that matter), the
sprouts bounce off the walls with a pair of rough-hewn power pop gems.
"Song In Your Street" is sugary pop performed with a garage punk
attitude, while "Sweet Goodbye" flips the equation over. Very nice; I
wouldn't mind hearing more of this. Also hailing from a Stockholm
suburb (Tyres÷), Ebon Tale is angrier and noisier on "Sit Down," the
followup to its debut EP Blanket Skies. The trio doesn't leave melody
behind by any means, but "Sit Down" revels in distortion (especially on
singer Frida FranzΘn's voice) and a sense of impending chaos as much as
hooks. "This 6 Year Old Feeling" is a lengthy but compelling
instrumental that builds tension through riff repetition instead of
empty soloing; it's the kind of epic track the band wouldn't have
gotten away with if it had been released as the B-side of a vinyl
single.
The oddly-named Enemies Swe (I guess there was already a band somewhere
in the world called the Enemies) eschew any kind of aspirations to art
and stick with straightforward, hard-edged rock & roll. The hooky,
nasty "Enemy" indicates that the Backyard Babies have had an enormous
impact on Swedish hard rock, which is fine with me, if the results are
this exhilarating. The cover of Alice Cooper's "Is It My Body"
spotlights a clear influence, but simply isn't as strong as the band's
self-penned cut. Speaking of self-penned, Tobias Fr÷berg is the latest
singer/songwriter to emerge from the frozen north. Taken from his
forthcoming Silence Records debut, "So I" is a gorgeous slice of
heartfelt folk pop, with lovelorn lyrics, fluid fingerpicking, tasteful
production and a sweetly affecting vocal. Imagine a dream collaboration
of Nick Drake with Simon & Garfunkel and you're in the same snow bank.
The demo of "The Rain" is starker, just Fr÷berg and a gently echoing
piano, and despite the melody's passing resemblance to "The Rose," it's
also a fine song and wonderful performance. All of these artists make
me want to hear full-length recordings of their music, but Fr÷berg in
particular has great potential. Michael Toland