| Valley Below | ultrasport | Underwater Sleeping Society | ||
|
Valley Below comes from central part of Finland and their music
take influences from 90’s power pop and harmonic folky pop
of the 60’s. You can expect lots of gorgeous vocal arrangements
and beautifully arranged pop music. It’s warm, colourful and
versatile pop music. Ranging from those power pop / guitar pop hits
to captivating folky pop tales. |
ultrasport started out making sweet and adorable indie pop music.
Years have brought more depth and versatility, but haven't been
able to completely remove the cuteness of it. ultrasport also remains
one of my own personal favourite groups. If you are looking for
indie pop hits, just pick up the album False Start City and you'll
fall in love with them. Like The Go-Betweens covering Born To Run
by mr. Springsteen they describe it themselves. Bloody gorgeous
pop music, sing-along choruses, addictive melodies and a whole lot
of fun too. |
If you don't want to settle for simple pop music and you're looking
for something bit more ambitious and challenging, Underwater Sleeping
Society is a good choise. Melodic indie rock and atmospheric pop
music that sometimes has a tendency to build up into something that
is too big and progressive for my own tastes. The core is still
something very beautiful and pure, so it doesn't really matter that
much. And hey, if you are sick of all those pop groups singing about
their imaginary girlfriends, Underwater Sleeping Society provides
a challenging alternative. |
||
| Velvert | Witherspoon | Viola | ||
|
Velvert is a young band who seem to be into 90's british guitar
pop and shoegazing and name bands like Ride, Stone Roses and Boo
Radleys as their influences. It's early days for this highly promising
group, but you can already find lots of beautiful soundscapes and
warm melodies from their songs. It's already really good pop music
and within a few years time, it could be something marvellous. I'll
keep my eye on them. |
If you love US powerpop, this could be your new favourite group.
They even name groups like The Rosenbergs, Fountains of Wayne and
Cherry Twister as influence (and it's a whole another story how
much I love that people know Cherry Twister). There's no official
releases at this point in time, but you can download full songs
from their website. I'll suggest you do that, because this is excellent
material if you are into sunny power pop that contains lots of marvellous
vocal harmonies. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best kind of
music there is and Witherspoon is a really good young pop group.
|
In the beginning Viola gazed stars, brought warmth inside melodrama
and gave a shoulder to cry on. It was endlessly beautiful emotion-filled
pop music and I loved it to bits. These were the days of the debut
album Tearcandy. Viola's sight and sound experience hasn't completely
changed, but it has evolved to become much more electronic and dancable.
It seems that we are going into totally different directions and
therefore my love and affection towards them isn't as strong as
it used to be. However, it's only a personal preference. The new
material isn't any worse, it's just different. If you're looking
for great pop melodies, 80's disco pop, electronic beats, it's all
there. And thankfully they still create some melancholic and dramatic
beauties as well. |
||
| Wojciech | Volter | |||
|
Wojciech is a group from Turku that got a lot of attention even
before the release of their debut album. And they deserve it all
with their unique and uplifting music which make stars collide with
your heart. The lyrics (in finnish) are wonderful dreamlike visions,
insights and stories that make you feel like an innocent boy/girl
who is trying to locate the star pattern from the sky with a help
of grandpa. The music is often compared to groups like Mercury Rev,
Flaming Lips, early Mojave 3. |
If a band names Emitt Rhodes as influence they already deserve
all the love I can give. Perhaps it wouldn't be enough in the long
run though if they weren't able to create really good pop music
themselves. Therefore it's nice that great influences isn't the
only great thing about Volter. They certainly are capable of writing
really good 60's influenced pop music. Volter do not rock you, but
they do give you good sweet melodies. Delightful material. |
|
||
