Pop music has become bland and predictable enough without indie bands doing their bit to make it even more so.
Guther is a Swedish duo who, aside from some restrained warm fuzz and contrasting instrumentation around the edges, are doing just that. Making dull, shiny, melancholic pop that would fit right in with your local grocery's muzak selection. Maybe that'll happen in Sweden, but these tunes won't likely show up anywhere else. This is the sort of music that is so inanely familiar that its best can only be touted as "pleasant." It's toe-tapping and mind-numbing with safe and steady progressions. And yet another pretentious/nonsensical promo sheet only serves to strengthen one's distaste.
In Sundet, I hear slick, professional pop rock that is so aping and trite that it easily shifts from pleasant to irritatingly dull. Perhaps this is just not for music fans. Yet, casual music listeners will likely never hear this or anything from Morr Music's catalogue. But let me just do my job for music lovers of all stripes reading this and point you towards Broadcast. They've recently released a B-sides compilation that wipes the floor with this in so far as original, moody and ornately produced pop music goes. When another pop group's leftovers trump your carefully selected offerings, perhaps it's time to try a less blasé approach to making music.
Sundet is assured, well-fleshed lite mope rock music that is solidly mediocre. If Lush and Metric aren't enough of that for you, perhaps you should seek this LP out. But if you find yourself getting bored out of your mind by the third track, don't say I didn't warn you. This is rainy day music for bland people with fake imagination. It's music for the regulation folding of designer sweaters. Even at its best, it's just not necessary.
1. Still in This Town
2. Statements
3. Many Frames Per Moment
4. Throwing Thoughts
5. Trick or Treat
6. Who Was First
7. Afraid
8. Even When It's Not
9. A Brief Encounter
10. No Need to Mention
11. Two Minds in Between Labbi
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