Yet another cool band coming out of the very busy Gothenburg scene. This time, however, instead of being on a Swedish label like Birds Will Sing For You, Animal Daydream are instead on cool American indie Jigsaw Records out of Seattle. Still, one thing is for sure they sound like they would make a great double bill with Hillman Lighthouse should you be hanging out in Gothenburg.
The picture on the sleeve looks a bit like a re-imagining of the hills around Gothenburg harbour but with all sorts of strange exotic animals rather than the fantastic bronze statues of the lost kids I found when walking around there a few years ago.
So having set my turntable to 33 1/3 rpm (no they didn’t catch me out) Canyon Rose came out like a quite mellow and laid back 60s Byrds meets Buffalo Springfield-type song about a canyon rose that also reminds me a bit of Dead Rock West. It has some cool swirling noises over the pleasant vocals.
Glass Ships stays in the same territory with maybe just a hint of, say, Viva Saturn thrown in and a small dose of International Harvester but without the politics. But there’s plenty going on in the gentle pastoral slowly-building song like they want to push a glass ship over one of the Lakes on the outskirts of Gothenburg, only it’s still frozen and they are waiting for the thaw. The quiet modulation they seek as it slowly goes across the lake.
Easy pleasures feels like a less annoying High Llamas song and it may well be. the press release claims it had a Fleetwood Mac influence but don’t let that put you off as it is thankfully barely noticeable while they sing about having to go inside as it’s raining again. A very cool song.
The EP closes with I Knew You Would Come Along Before The Fall. It sounds pretty similar to the other 3 songs but adds a little dash of Belle and Sebastian winsomeness to the gentle 60’s style pastoral Americana. They certainly don’t sound like many of the Swedish bands I love from the 60’s mind. Nonetheless, this is a good debut single and hopefully we’ll be hearing more from Animal Daydream soon.
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