Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Pet Politics


Just like Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, fellow Swedish pop act Pet Politics have looked to The Silver Jews for their name. The comparisons with Swedish indie pop’s summery sound end there though.

Pet Politics’ new ep The Spring – not, of course, to be confused with their last ep, The Spring (apart from the title track, which is the same) – is caught between the sounds of hope and despair, of The Velvet Underground’s hypnotic drone and the Modern Lovers’ energetic, adolescent interpretation of the Velvets' blueprint.

These three songs – every one of them a fucking peach – by Magnus Larsson (for it is he who is the Pet Politics one-man band) have the restless ambition and off-beam naivety of Daniel Johnston in 1983; the disjointed awkwardness of the TVPs at their most stricken and agonised; the childlike wonder and simplistic pop instinct of The Pastels; and the rugged charm and pastoral idealism of The Kinks.

There are only 300 copies of this utterly essential 7”. Be quick or be sorry, I guess.

No comments: