It surprises me how many musicians in the business contact me directly. In this case it is a Swedish record label, Ninetone, from Sundsvall, up in the centre-north of the country that I hadn’t come across previously, doing its own PR.
They offered me four artists with new releases. Covering all four would be overkill, but I picked out two of them for attention.
The first is a rock band, Frances Bloom, a group of five tough looking blokes who could be out of South L.A. or Oakland rather than sophisticated Sweden. They might have been doing security at Altamont. The guy who I assume is the front man has the air of a young Charles Bronson about him. On their Facebook page they say “We’re still alive”. I don’t know what they’ve been up to, perhaps better not to ask
They have just released a new song, ‘Lift me up’, and it rocks and is probably more of a babe magnet than any amount of Harley Davidsons. Rock verging on metal is where I’d put it.
They’re tight. You have to be when you play at this fast, unrelenting pace. Just to be lah-di-dah for a moment, there’s an unusual amount of syncopation for a straight-up rock band and I would love to know who their producer is. It isn’t often you can hear each of the four notes on the hi-hat in a standard 4:4 composition, rather just the last one on the snare.
Good stuff. I’ll watch out for them again.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/francesbloomsweden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frances.bloom/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/francesbloom_
(They have a website but it is “experiencing technical difficulties” as I write).
The other artist is quite different, BRAUNBEER, which I assume means brown beer, like Newcastle Brown.
He is an electronic artist and his song is ‘Love is gone’, with unspecified assistance from Junior Paes. Now there’s an interesting question. When love is gone, where does it go? I recall Arcade Fire asking that on a track on their ‘Reflektor’ album but they never got an answer.
Checking out his social media it looks as if he is at least as well known as a remix artist but ‘Love is gone’ isn’t a bad effort at all (and it isn’t the Guetta/Willis song). It swings between an electro-pop ballad at one end of the scale and a catchy full-on EDM banger at the other while his soft high tenor tone contrasts with the hard pulsating beat.
It’s the sort of thing that should be hitting the clubs in Ibiza but the season’s over; a case of unfortunate timing.
According to his PR he’s been doing this since 2012 but as a hobby and it’s only since 2021that he’s been treating it as a business. His main ‘genres’ are Hardstyle, SlapHouse and Big Room, which could be categories at the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition for all I know, so I’ll steer away from there, pronto.
Give it a listen. I reckon you’ll like it.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/b.beermusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braunbeermusic/
We hope you enjoyed reading this review. There are hundreds of others, suiting most musical tastes, so please have a browse through. Go to ‘All News and Reviews’ or select your preferred tab (‘Albums’, ‘Live’, ‘Features’ etc). There is also a search facility…your favourite artist or band might be here!
BE SURE FOLLOW NORDIC MUSIC CENTRAL ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER OR INSTAGRAM, CLICK THE LINKS AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF EACH PAGE.
