This Swedish duo churns out rolling dance rock like a coffee grinder full of Mexican jumping beans. Their new album, #3, is a culmination of a few years of EPs and festival-playing that’s full of buzzing beats and crooning harmonies wrapped in whirring, acoustic jams that make you want to dance even if you’re sitting down. It’s a smiling orgasm, a party album that you can put in your pocket, and a canvas of elaborate strokes mixing skiffle, bluegrass, electronica, and beach rock, like Magical Mystery Tour meets Pet Sounds.
Johan Hedberg and Peter Gunnarsson have put together a mash of organic power pop that grows best in sun and is magnetizing enough to make you want to enjoy it with a friend. "Rent a Wreck" has a joggy feel with background "ba"s rolling up and down grassy hills. "Loop Duplicate My Heart" is like Postal Service covering The Spinto Band, with sing-a-long fuzztronica that sways like a field of dandelions. There’s no filler, every intricate detail adds to the greater good.
With each song around three minutes, they blow by with ease, each presenting a different texture of a grocery’s produce section. Acoustic guitars, horns, synthbeats, and whistles highlight "A Couple Of Instruments". The flowing, tenor vocals are a genius combination with upbeat jams and ballads up and down the album.
There’s perhaps too much going on here to become a major pop hit, but that’s because most people or their crappy stereos couldn’t process everything that’s sprayed throughout #3. The duo has gone out of their way to make an extensively light-but-dense album that treads the lines of pop, dance, rock, and electronica in a deliciously catchy way. If all catch-of-the-days were this fresh, we’d never have to worry about food poisoning.