The good folks at Parasol recently struck a finished product deal with this Swedish Warner Music Group label to distribute, relatively cheaply, quantities of TSOOL’s catalog here in the good ol’ US of A. (Everyone say “thank you.”)
The first dates from ’96, the most recent from this past year. As you might be aware of, TSOOL was founded by the former singer and guitarist, Ebbot Lundberg and Björn Olsson respectively, of Union Carbide Productions. They were a howling, Stoogesoid (pre-Williamson) five-piece from Göteborg that wailed at the gods from ‘86 to the early ‘90s. (To be honest I’ve never heard their later recordings, so a certain supposition is entailed here.)
The music of TSOOL is much more refined, with a facile sense of arrangement and Lundberg displaying a mellifluous voice. There’s an itch at my Medulla Oblongata that whispers “concept album(s),” but even with infinite time and a keener intellect I don’t think I could explain them.
The first album, WTTIF, is made up of 20 tracks, at a whopping total length of 70 minutes. It also has the most breadth starting with the epic length, repetitious rocker Mantra Slider, which comes topped by an elongated English style vocal that segues into a bit of Williamson period Iggy in the chorus.
Underground Indian lays the effects on liberally for an ascending slice of psychedelia – kind of early Floydish. Throughout the record the influence of various ‘60s British figures bubbles up. The tight rocker Blow My Cool is snatched right out of Between The Buttons, complete with Nicky Hopkins.
While the harpsichord led Embryonic Rendezvous is a Rubble destined bit of swaying Pop-Sike. Magic Muslims is a bit of sitar marked Raga. But the most overt one is the Kinks, who are like a touchstone across all three albums. Here you get a veritable re-write of Waterloo Sunset called Bendover Babies. Then for Retro Man they march along like Muswell Hillbillies complete with banjo.
ER has a more subdued, atmospheric nature with a thicker coating of reverb and efx (which could account some for why mid-period Floyd is never far from mind — see Dark Star). There are only two rockers out of the 16 tunes that make up this set (length 61’ this time): the mid-tempo ditty Interstellar Inferiority Complex and the full-on, handclap driven Safety Operation, which works into a call and response between the vocal and a slide guitar then exchanges a drawn out Jaggeresque phrasing for a sweet snatch of Ray Davies in the brief bridge.
Another tangy morsel is the Country-Rock — nice mix of jangle & slide guitars and L.A harmonies — leaning Mega Society. Speaking of L.A., So Far counterpoises the I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better jangle guitar riff and tambourine with some jungle-like tom play and their basic Psych/Prog pouch of efx to make an intriguing goulash. In various ways this is a transition album, particularly with the seeming exit of Olsson and entrance of guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mattias Bärjed during its creation.
For BTM the band switched from their co-producer of the first two, T. Larsson, to Johan Forsman. This gives the record (15 tracks, 57’) a brighter, cleaner sound, and a particularly more up-front drum sound. There is also a bit more modernity (i.e. Modern-Rock) lurking about, but tempered with the elements and influences referred to above.
Out of the box comes Infra Riot, a mid-tempo rocker equal parts football chant drumming and buzzing, sitar-led Raga elements. Then comes Surround Sister with its varietal stack of guitars, an ear-catching lead guitar run in the chorus, a head-on rhythm and a topping of massed, euphonic backing vocals.
That’s one thing you can count on: a considered and inventive use of all the multiple guitars in their songs, none of that blurring them all into one thick pattern (see Strokes). Mind The Gap, another mid-period Floyd oriented number, brings the first, and unexpectedly late, overt Beatles quote (Strawberry Fields Forever(?)) I’ve found in their oeuvre.
Then four songs later, Keep The Line Movin’, they adapt the woosh of breath bit from Come Together. Returning to more familiar ground Lundberg does another Davies turn in the catchy, Glammy rocker 21st Century Rip Off. Within whatever storyline they’re developing here they’ve inlayed a more acoustic oriented subsection: from the transitional jangly rocker Nevermore (#9) to the string infused In Your Veins (#13).
Why the massive AOL Time Warner conglomerate doesn’t have the vision to see these guys as their U2, but with better tunes, I guess is for next decade’s corporate historians to discern.
[Released by Parasol 2001]
[Original released in Sweden by Warner/Telegram in 1996, 1998 & 2001]
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