erasing clouds
 

The Electric Pop Group, Seconds

review by dave heaton

I’m a sucker for a good melancholy indie-pop album, heartbreak music with pretty, catchy tunes and a bittersweet air. The Swedish band The Electric Pop Group’s debut full-length Seconds is one of the best I’ve heard in years (and I hear a lot of them, believe me). Erik Aamot sings in a sweetly sensitive way, carrying each change in the song’s emotions. It’s a more impressive vocal performance than on most indie-pop records. He sings over music that’s quite catchy – ‘jangly’ guitars, wonderful hooks. The content of nearly every of song is loneliness, letting go, betrayal, confusion – in other words the end of love. Familiar content, but the Electric Pop Group takes a unique approach to it, one that’s philosophical but still concrete.

”Out of Sight” is that feeling where you don’t want to know the truth, you’d rather stay blind if it means someone leaving you. Convincing yourself is also part of “I Know I Will”: “I’ll always believe what you say / I know I will”. “Drawing Lines” is the moment you realize you’re drifting apart. “In the Back of My Mind”, with lovely overlapping vocals, is also about a moment of realization, and the way people and events really do leave you. Time passes and memories vanish “Into Thin Air”, as one song puts it. The uptempo “The Way It Used to Do”, which reminds me of New Order somewhat, also acknowledges that time passes and things change. That’s the overriding feeling here, of things becoming different each day, as the seconds tick by, and not necessarily for the better.

{www.indiepages.com/matinee}


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