Staff pick of the week...
This week...Jim picks it!

Artist: The Concretes Title: S/T Price: $15.00 CD	Tracks on this CD:
	Say Something New
	You Can't Hurry Love
	Chico
	New Friend
	Diana Ross
	Warm Night
	Foreign Country
	Seems Fine
	Lovin Kind
	Lonely As Can Be
	This One's For You

The Concretes, once three teenage girls, now an 8+piece Nordic pop orchestra, are led by Victoria Bergsman’s sensually slurred voice (she hangs brightly indeed)…whilst the band adorns the tunes with strings and horns and ramps up the reverb to Phil Spector-esque levels, injecting the lush Mazzy Star dreaminess with a lithe, hip-shaking Ronettes-styled 60s girl-group shimmy. Even the saddest ballads are infused with the stuff that screams pop genius! A retro, sexy bliss-pop album bursting with love, love, love…sure, love gone bad but maybe love gone good too, the happiest, saddest record of recent memory. The adoring gush has already begun in the UK, and The Concretes, who had an EP collection on Up Records a couple years back and are all set to blow up here in the U.S. next year on a big-label-to-be-named-later… Seriously, one of the very best albums in recent memory, for fans of Mazzy Star, Opal, The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Delgados, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Phil Spector’s wall-o-sound, and “the ramshackle charm of early Belle & Sebastian”. Honorary Concretes for this album include genre-defying Svensk crooner Nicolai Dunger and Bear Quartet guitarist Jari Haapalainen.

“Ungodly-good girl-group from the mean streets of Stockholm, who swagger like Ronnie and layer-on instruments like Phil as they conjure the Spector of past pop with wall-of-sound arrangements… It's such ridiculous genius that calling it album-of-the-year feels like slander… The best pop band in the history of this moment; playing up a debut disc proper that's the best record in the history of 2003 as it stands so far.” (Neumu)

“Decent bands may be two-a-penny these days, but those flirting with genuine magic are few and far between. Which is why Swedish pop orchestra The Concretes are such a heart-melting treat… Matching the artful drone of The Velvet Underground with a sugar coating of The Ronettes and the ramshackle charm of early Belle & Sebastian, this is aural seduction of the highest order. By this time next year the whole world will be under their spell.” (NME)

The Spectorian thunder of jaw-drop opener Say Something New suggests a new emphasis on maximalism. Now it sounds like a 50-piece Concretes orchestra swooning through the melancholy bonhomie of Warm Night, and the harp-led cascade on the coda to this One's For You. Victoria Bergsman's intimate, tipsy voice is just as suited to the silent movie piano backing of Foreign Country as it is to cranky, bolero tribute to Diana Ross "She leads my way in to a love hangover". (Mojo)

“Second full length from one of our favourite Swedish should be superstars The Concretes. 11 tracks that range from gorgeous scando pop with those breathy and sexy female vocals to more mellow moments that sound like Mazzy Star or Nico and The Velvet Underground. From start to finish this oozes quality.” (Rough Trade)

The melodic songs are undeniably accessible, evoking the gauzy, country-folk seductiveness of Mazzy Star and the tambourine-shaking fuzziness of The Jesus & Mary Chain, morphed into their unique signature sound… Choruses swell (with rising star Nicolai Dunger contributing backing vocals), horns swoop, organs wheeze, strings tickle, and gigantic cartoon bumblebees fly straight out of (Mercury Rev/Flaming Lips) Dave Fridmann’s bonnet (he didn’t produce it, but probably dreamt he did). (Fast-N-Bulbous)