Searching for Shakes Swedish Beat 65-68

Wot a great cd... Got a cdr of this 99 reissue in the past week. It seems that our musical friends from Sverige were very contemporary with the styles from the UK, and pull it off extremely well.

The reference system really seems to dig on the monophonic glory of the 45s on this. One wonders where Benny Andersson appears on this release. A trip over there a few years back suggested that he is still fairly integral with music and even current bands. I wish I had this cd when I was there as I think that the beer and wine fueled singalongs would have been even more fun with these sounds as source material.

The Namelosers start strong with Do-Ao. Much fuzz leads this moody howler, where the vocalist emits quite a howl among the guitar feedback screech and sustain. Strong.

Early fave is track 3 At The Club, where the T-Boones put on their best English r&b strut. A wonderful reverb ladened push moves this song. "You're my secret-- love at the club."

My fave track is The Tages with their freakbeatish The Man You are Looking For. Swirls of sound spit off the disc here. I am not sure if they put their Norsk brethren The Diworced to shame with their sound, but this one does it for theses ears. Nice strong drums that Mitch Mitchell could be jealous of.

The Lee Kings do a massive Whoesque feedback drenched break as part of the coda in On My Way. Darn impressive is the mood that they dish here.

Steampacket II in Take Her Anytime, assemble awesome Hammond under a sustained guitar distortion wash, more please. I love the clearly stated vocal. Even reverb on the snare. She'll be yours, you gotta be the one for her. This one borders on the psychedelic. I can put this in heavy rotation.

Ah hell, most of this stuff is totally correct for your next aquavit session accompanied with the requisite fiske. These groups also understood that if you can't make it happen in under 3:30, son't bother, as most of these songs are in the 1:50 to 2:20 range as it should be.