Thursday, February 5, 2009

There Is No Strength In Reaching Out

One of the records from the tail-end of 2008 that I missed, was Tellus About the Moon's debut ep on Letterbox. TATM was one of the Swedish pop bands that turned up in the wake of Days and The Electric Pop Group. They're from Gothenburg as well and their bass player is also in Electric Pop Group and The Lost Homeboys. Musically, they'll remind you of Cats On Fire, The Felt Tips and successful Matinée signees Northern Portrait, especially due to the overbearing presence of singer Nicke in the mix. Their songs are a bit more open-ended though and the production a bit more tinny. That's fine by me of course, but you get the feeling they'd rather sound like St. Christopher given a chance. The second song "Hate" was one of the first they had on Myspace, in 2007, and it still sounds great. My favourite however, is "Sharktooth" which starts off with a great guitar hook coupled by another then yet another guitar track in the background. "Sharktooth" and "Nomore" (which is the opening track) does make you wonder if there's a thought behind this compounding. Either way, Harvey likes them, and that severely limits your say in the matter! Download "Nomore" from Letterbox and shut it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

All of the bands you namechecked certainly encouraged me to listen to 'Nomore.' That guitar is PURE Cats on Fire (and I have been quite worried that their new album will be very sullen and downbeat so it's good to hear another band keeping it sprightly).

Very much agree with the yearning to sound like St. Christopher (and with that theatrical voice)! Maybe they will do well and get a budget to add some string and brass dramatics to their new songs, much like Sambassadeur got to between albums one and two!

*jennifer*

Matt said...

i was just listening to this earlier this week and i have to say that the cats on fire comparison is dead on! I'd never heard "Hate" before, so it was brand new to me and i think it might just be my favorite of the bunch.

Letterbox Records said...

Thankyouuu!

£2.99 for letterboxrecords.com

Best wishes,

Gav