“On the Radio”
from the album The Concretes In Colour
2006
iTunes
In Colour is the follow up to the Concretes’ critically acclaimed debut album. Still an eight piece group (4 girls and 4 guys) they have spent the last year progressing their original Motown/Wall of Sound produced Swedish pop to a more folky outlay with the help of Bright Eyes affiliate Mike Moggis.
The result is a lush symphonic album of pop gems and lovely folk laments. Recorded in their native Sweden and mixed in the US, this album is the first album that Mike Mogis hasn’t recorded in his renowned Presto Studios outlet. The album starts with the piano progressive first track of “On the Radio,“ which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Carpenters Greatest Hits album. When the melodies lace themselves around the jangly guitars and intermittent flute it almost transposes the listener into a quiet walk in the pine needle riddled forests of Sweden.
The languid beauty of singer Victoria Bergsman’s voice is the main vocal presence on the album but to spice it up the Concretes nominated Lisa to sing a lovely duet with Romeo from the Magic Numbers and also guitarist Maria Eriksson’s plaintive honey tones are registered on the folk based “Grey Days.”
There are obvious parallels on this album with Fleetwood Mac and also Saddle Creek’s own Bright Eyes, but the Concretes interject their own sound with the reliance on traditional instruments augmented by the occasional flourish of brass and bells.
Although the sweetness and light that they project is for all to hear, the blanket of gauzy reverb — the blueprint to their sound — beckons a brighter, harsher light to come.