Long view. Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden

You can listen to and download Long view here.

Despite the fact that the names of bands get stranger and stranger the music some of these bands produce, is quite excellent. This certainly goes for the songs on Long view, the Noisetrade sampler Kate Tucker and "her Sons" released through this website. Pop songs on the verge of pop, rock, folk and new wave come by that sound very pleasing to my ears.

Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden is a Seattle based band. At least it was in the incarnation for most of this Noisetrade sampler. Since 2012 Kate Tucker operates with a new band under the same name that will release a new album called 'The Shape, The Color, The Feel' soon. Long view is a compilation of a few new songs, songs played live and the whole debut album called 'Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden'.

Long view caught my attention at first listen and has not let go since. It has this relaxed pop music on it with a female singer singing with this light, fleeting voice, that is very appealing. There is a danger that Kate Tucker's singing becomes to thin, but she shies away from this in a perfect way. The way the music is mixed always makes sure that she can sing from her strength.

Long view offers true beauty. 'On the radio' is this luxuriously mid-tempo song, played and sung in this dragging way, like the song comes just behind the rhythm. A trick Kate Tucker and Sons have down to near perfection. 'The first day of the year' tells all: "I think every song should be slow". Making notes last longer or falling in to the next word just a little later than expected. The mood is slowly added to by mixing in an organ from very soft to normal and by that time a piano is playing some chords or a few notes. Background vocals fall into and out of the song. Despite the fact that hardly anything changes, this song is so beautiful and interesting. Just very well played and produced.

Some comparisons. Several songs take off where REM's 'Everybody hurts' stopped. There is a little The Cranberries in there in the way Kate Tucker sings. The ballads of Madrugada come to mind, thinking away the deep voice of Sivert Høyem and the electric guitars of Robert Burås. And more than once I'm reminded of Hazeldine. So what Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden plays are the better ballads with here and there a modest but distinct edge, like in the live version of 'Everything went down', in which electric guitars are allowed into the mix or the guitar work in 'Hangover', which goes into the better Coldplay, U2 atmospheres. This is a side to band that I also like, so certainly interesting to see them live someday, should they come this way.

Long view undoubtedly is put on Noisetrade.com for only a short while, profit while the fun lasts dear reader!, to tease us into buying the upcoming new album, 'The shape, the color, the feel'. Going by Long view, it will be interesting to learn more of Kate Tucker and the new Sons of Sweden. Yes, I'm teased, says

Wo.