Oh so Swede
Sometimes in music you don’t want something new but you want something in a style that you haven’t heard in a while. It may be a Sad Day For Puppets but it’s a great day for lovers of jangly pop and fuzzed up guitars who have been waiting since the early 90s to hear a song explode like this. The intro captures the sound of ‘Feel A Whole Lot Better’ by The Byrds or ‘Needles And Pins’ by The Searchers before rushing straight into a Dinosaur Jnr or early Teenage Fanclub vibe. For once, a press release has captured the sound of a band spot on and although Soma Records are hoping for another shoegazing return with their latest ‘Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi’ release, fans of that fuzzed up Rickenbacker-led sound of the early 90s will be in heaven with this song.
It’s as melodic as you would expect from the land that gave us the Concretes and The Cardigans and as strong as you would expect from the land that gave us Henrik Larsson and Johan Mjallby. Sad Day For Puppets are the latest in a serious line of great Swedish exports and ‘Marble Gods’, their debut single will not be the last that is heard of them. The fade out of the song gives you plenty of time to ruminate over what you have just heard but its more likely you will itching to head back to the start and play the lead song all over again.
B-side ‘Big Waves’ is slower but no lighter in tone and manages to sound like a non-Christmas version of Greg Lakes ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’, which is an absolute bonus, making it the crimbo hit you can listen to all year round. It’s big, brassy and it has a shed load of tambourines which is all that you will ever need in a bonus track.