The Concretes

This Swedish band plays languorous guitar pop that, if you're a fan of groups like the Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 and Mazzy Star, you'll listen to immediately, even if you have to push someone aside to do it. The backbeats are all fragments of girl-group tracks of yore, while the childlike female vocals and the big shards of guitar fuzz make this one a no-brainer.

How many Swedes does it take to make a Wall of Sound? For the Concretes' debut album,
this loose collective crammed twenty musicians into the studio to make shimmying pop that
Phil Spector might as well have had a hand in. Their debt to girl groups such as the Shirelles
and Ronettes extends from the echoey production and perpetual jitter of tambourine to
the insistently upbeat mood that infects even the sad bits. It's not all retro: Even... More >