Mummypowder: Centuries Later (Grandpop Records, 2011)
It’s soon time to select june’s album of the month and I still haven’t even written about the may’s album of the month, which is Mummypowder’s fourth album Centuries Later. Mummypowder is a huge favourite 0f mine, one of the best pop groups in the country and should be regarded as a national treasure. They released three great albums between 1999 and 2004, but it took them a long while to get this fourth one done. Centuries Later is definitely worth the wait and another wonderful pop album.
Janne Lehtinen has been a magnificent songwriter since the debut ep and therefore it’s almost impossible to become any better at it, but I think Centuries Later contains the finest lyrics he has ever written. Of course Janne’s amazing voice & the band’s ability to create dazzlingly beautiful pop hooks and arrangements would make even the most typical “she loves you yeah-yeah” kind of lyric sound like the sweetest work of art, but it doesn’t hurt it if you can wrap the sentiments into a well-crafted a story. Timeless pop music is a probably a pretty lame way to describe music, but that’s what this is to me. Some songs take me to my own golden era of music, the late 90’s guitar pop scene, while other songs might take more influences from 60’s groups like The Left Banke and Honeybus. Everything sounded magical from the start, but somehow the album still finds the way to become even more and more moving and beautiful with each and every listening session. Therefore I encourage you to give it some time, if the often slow-paced melodic beauty of the album doesn’t instantly find the core of your heart. I guarantee it will find it in the end and then it’s time to forget all those worthless trendy indie bands and start shouting Mummypowder’s name from the rooftops.
Listen to Part Of The Fun:
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/12978469″]