Starting an album with a seven minute instrumental when you’re not an instrumental band might be construed as madness, but it’s evidential of the confidence with which Sweden’s Electric Boys approach new album Ups!de Down that, not only do the band pull this improbable feat, they do it with style and gusto…
It’s always tempting when a Swedish band crops up on the radar to describe something they’ve done as a Smörgåsbord, but… that’s really what this sumptuous album is. That opening instro-track, Upside Down Theme, is the album in microcosm, offering the discerning listener a sprawling musical landscape that fits the Eagles together with Neil Young and Joe Satriani in a seamless, musicianly tour de force. It’s all over the place, yes, yet delivered with such focus and instrumental guile that everything makes perfect sense on reflection.
Elsewhere the superbly louche The Dudes & The Dancers delves into territory routinely owned by fellow Swedes The Diamond Dogs, revisiting seventies London when it was ruled by names like Bowie and Hoople, and this feeling is rekindled on the fabulous ballad She Never Turns Around, which actually adds a little Britpop nostalgia-flecked sixties worship to the mix and is successful on every front into the bargain. This is seriously accomplished stuff, notwithstanding the band’s supremely self-confident ‘carefree’ image; like Dolly Parton once said – it takes a lot of money to look this cheap…
Despite the fact that the band have very obviously pleased themselves with this album, there isn’t a weak point to be found anywhere, much less anything that could be labelled self-indulgent. Conny Bloom and his mates are master craftsmen, and on Ups!de Down they’ve used that craft to deliver some of the most vital, exciting music of their long and storied career. Tracks like incendiary classic rocker Tumblin’ Dominoes stand among the band’s best, ever, and that’s not something many artists of thirty-plus years standing can manage. If you’re already an EB fan, you’ll lap up every second of this and if not… welcome to a whole new world of enjoyment – you’re gonna love it!
Ups!de Down releases on April 30th.
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