Yep, that’s what it’s come to folks; clearing a huge ‘backlog’ of submissions with very quick reviews but here we go:
Pepe Deluxé (Finland/Sweden) – Freedom Flag (single from a Double A side + video)
After all the taxing Eurovision stuff this week this should put everyone back on an even keel and I have to say that if Finland has to have a weird and wacky song and performance every year (which they evidently do, it must be written into the Constitution), including a guy whose ‘wardrobe malfunction’ this year involved his private parts falling out of his pants then they really should have picked these guys.
Pepe Deluxé, are the Finnish-Swedish “funkateers” (I like that word, makes me think of Brexiteers) called James Spectrum and Paul Malmström, and this is from their forthcoming (kudos to the Publicity Manager for not saying ‘upcoming’ – I’m Old Skool) album ‘Comix Sonix’ which is out on 21st June, on Catskills Records.
It starts off like the introduction to a Trump convention and doesn’t stop. The lead singer looks like she’s just stepped straight out of the Three Degrees or Destiny’s Child, while other members might be from Star Trek or Galaxy Quest.
The video, which extols the virtues of sausages as a metaphor for creative freedom, has all the hallmarks of a Pom Poko creation, while in invoking ‘the Bodysnatchers’ they demonstrate exactly the same vivacity as that 1980s British girl band.
It channels more movies than I care to remember and even includes a double bass solo by Kai Hahto who evidently has nothing better to do while Nightwish are on touring hiatus. (And I suspect he might have been behind the kit as well).
I could write about this all day. There is a whole lot more to this band than this tongue in cheek song and video and I’m certain it gets quite profound. But this is a quick catch-up so let’s just call it great light entertainment and move swiftly on…
Find them on:
Website: https://pepedeluxe.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PepeDeluxeOfficial/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pepe_Deluxe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pepedeluxeofficial
Beverley Kills (Sweden) – Sunset Drive
Plenty of Californ-i-a references here from the Gothenburg-based Swedes starting with their name and a song title that suggests an amalgam of Sunset Boulevard and Rodeo Drive or going from the ridiculous to the sublime if you’ll pardon the pun.
Gothenburg indie and particularly melodic post-punk is their style merging traditional restrained Swedish melancholy with more euphoric tones in the chorus.
As it turns out the song isn’t concerned with L.A. at all. If references a conversation they overheard in Austin, Texas, presumably while they were playing at SXSW, about a White Claw party being held at Sunset Drive.
They say that it made them feel as if they were in a college movie and that the song is “about getting water over your head and that in the end you can drink so many units of alcohol that it stops being fun.”
Better just to stick with the water.
Now as it happens the brand White Claw sponsored a shed load of music festivals across the UK a couple of years ago and I couldn’t help but think this track would make for a perfect accompaniment to a TV advert for them during which all the beautiful people of Austin get together and hit it off while sophisticatedly sipping said drink.
Does that put you in the right mood? Here you go…
This autumn, Beverly Kills releases their second album, and on 22nd May they play a show at The Garden, Stockholm.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beverlykillsforever
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/beverlykills031
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beverlykillsforever/
Bandcamp (track): https://beverlykillsforever.bandcamp.com/track/sunset-drive
Nicolay Lovvold (Norway) – Offended (single)
One thing I’ve always said about Nicolay Lovvold since I first came across him a couple of years ago is that he isn’t worried about pushing the envelope too far.
The first song of his we reviewed concerned a man who covets a girl he can’t have, persists in pursuing her with completely the wrong ideas and it doesn’t end well. Just the right side of the ‘acceptable’ boundary for most people, but not if you’re a Spanish footballer.
Other subjects have included dreams about sex, the night, and hollow relationships and he has in the past referred to one song which deals with a subject that might “offend our values”, a phrase dear old Facebook sometimes directs at me for some reason.
Anyway it seems like that song is this one, ‘Offended’, which he released on 27th March and which we should really bin as being out of date. But we decided to run it because he says it is performing better than his other recent material. And in our opinion that means it is probably controversial. Don’t you just think people are gagging to be offended these days? No? Just look at Eurovision. Or perhaps don’t.
And indeed, he says it “takes a critical and somewhat satirical stab at the current issue that we’re becoming increasingly more sensitive to things we don’t appreciate and thereby less tolerant. Sometimes it feels like you simply have to adhere to whatever’s trending – otherwise you risk trolls, haters and cancellations and what not – because it seems like a lot of fairly angry people are very ready to tear you apart with their ‘How dare you have an opinion on something that I care about?’ attitude.”
I can’t think of a better way of summing up modern Britain.
He adds, “I felt the allure from self-awareness and sarcasm when I wrote the song, so… It’s called ‘Offended’, and I aimed at making it as offensive as I could. That means there’s a good to fair chance it might rub some people the wrong way.”
Frankly, I reckon it’s a perfect remedy to the Woke Fest that Eurovision has degenerated into, one where a pleasant power ballad will get screamed down and drowned in bile while the ramblings of a satanic witch and the staging of what looks like a rape in a non-binary toilet are lauded to the hills.
It’s actually not as offensive as I’d feared, a few ‘fucks’, ‘fuckers’ and ‘piss’ apart, and there is a cleaned up edit as well if you can’t handle that.
In fact it comes across as a perfect anthem for the un-offended. It would go down a storm on the juke box at the Old Bull & Bush or the Cloggers Arms as the lads lace up their boots ready for the match and think they’re singing along to Chas ‘n Dave.
With the single exception that Nicolay Lovvold rocks where Chas ‘n Dave didn’t. I mean he ROCKS. He’s the working man’s Bruce Springsteen.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolaylovvold
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolaylovvold/
