I hesitated to make this my weekly review, but nothing else stood out. My hesitations come from my prejudice. Love Is All have a chick singer and they're Swedish. A couple good reviews on allmusic and Pitchfork later and I shrug my shoulders and move forward. What they say is true... there's a punk sensibility, an electronic sensibility and a pop one too.The album kicks off punky. "Bigger Bolder" is fun enough, but it also happens to contain a real bad ass bass riff after each verse. Go Johan, it's your birfday!
The 2nd track brings out some pop. Electronic-Abba type pop. Like something that might come off an Elvis soundtrack album, should he still be around doing shitty movies.
A couple of times, I'm reminded of another Swedish group, The Cardigans. (Are they Swedish? ...okay, just looked, they are. One more point for Nik's excellence.) "False Pretense" sounds like some New York hipster band was trying to ironically cover, "Lovefool".
At it's heart, Love Is All is a pop dance band. They build the core of their songs with disco beats and hooky bass thumps. Then, as if they're trying to throw Pitchfork off the trail of pop, they distort the same guitar riff that Nile Rodgers would have played clean and they add some kitchen sink things like bagpipes. And then to top it off, the singer moves her voice away from Donna Summer and closer to either Björk or a late Marianne Faithfull.
It's fun. Indie chicks will love it for a while. But I'm still weighed down by my prejudice. (2 of 5 stars)
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