Ever since from Abba, Scandinavia is known as an area whose climate is very favourable for “producing” first class pop music, especially if you exclude the synthesized clones in the favour of the ones delievered by guitars and drums.
Thanks to some of the Swedish groups like The Cardigans or Wannadies, Scandi guitar-pop, also stands equal, even commercially, to it’s British and American “cousins”.
As for Finland, even though it’s still a bit in the shadow, it’s part in conquering the pop world is hardly neglectable. After releasing three albums, Lemonator is considered to be a national power-pop classic and lately, thanks to the internet connections, their sound is spreading all over the world too!
With their first release, Yellow (released in Japan too !!!), they’ve already managed to reach the standards set by some of their idols like The Posies or Big Star (which usually comes together).
Their second album, Maison Relax, is based on a more progressive, Radioheady treatment and the third one, The Waltz, is the pure Scandi guitar-pop item!
One of the specialties of this record, as well as it’s the case with most of them from the same area, are the BIG choruses that infect your mind after the very first listen. Songs like That One Touch, In Your World or You’re Left, I’m Right just can’t be left without the “all the good songs sound familiar” comment though they’re all original compositions!
There are also a couple of “growers” that need several listens to become irresistable like The Unbreakable Two, One Last Day, You Stole My Heart … bringing us to counting more than half the album which simply makes it one of the 2000 must-have’s.
[Released by Spinefarm 2000]
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