RCRD LBL

There's something about Sweden.  And it's not just the impossibly good looking people, the delicious meatballs or the stoic neutrality.  It seems to be a country just close enough to the pop culture of the Western world that it doesn't blindly hop on trends with reckless abandon (i.e. Japan), but far enough away that trends have time to seep in the deliciously iced vodka of the country and emerge injected with the pop sensibility that apparently sneaks in through the soil (i.e. ABBA).  And what you get from this delicious pop cocktail is music that takes a genre and brings it up a notch.  Incorporating the fuzz of the Ravonettes and the distortion of the Legends, Blackstrap emerges with songs that are tailor made for driving down a straight open road in the middle of the night, with the cool air swirling through the open windows, cigarettes optional.  

"Rough Parade" couldn't be less...rough.  It glides along creating mini-explosions of tension like fire bursts in the night, combining the effortless cooing of Maria Linden and the sexy baritone of Jonatan Westh.  Blackstrap are a less drugged up, more airy, modern Velvet Underground - a martini shaken, not stirred.  "Cover Up" is an equally glittering track, left off of the Tee Pee release of Steal My Horses and Run.  With a little more muscle and fewer surprises than "Rough Parade," witness the full power of what Blackstrap can unleash.  This is a band with a mission to bring My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Primal Scream together in the alluring way that seemingly only the Swedes know how.