Monkton: On their way (into your face and ears)

While The Temper Trap’s sweet disposition has clearly got soundtrack producers salivating in their mastering suites, there’s another kind of sweetness around the corner, this time with a Swede disposition (oh yes) - they’ve got facial hair, a cowbell and good ear for straight up rock-and-pop, and for this I am very thankful. Yes, I do need to cut down on punning, but I don’t plan to cut down on The Sweet Serenades, who in turn have clearly been cutting down on trees….

MP3: ‘On My Way’ - The Sweet Serenades

Their debut album, Balcony Cigarettes, is stuffed full of old school influences - sweetly manhandled and infused with an appetite for upturned rock’n’roll, squandered clichés and quirky observation. As the title track candidly informs us - ‘it’s been a year since I’ve been laid’  - SS are hardly baying for the godlike status of your average cock and/or guitar wielding rock idol - an illusion further dispelled by a broad affection for kazoos, synths, 80s style heavy breathing and the odd smattering of spoken word. The Sweet Serenades are clearly as influenced by their scandi-pop contemporaries as the chiseled monuments of pop-rock history - all broadly represented in this immensely likable collection, which yes sir is available for your listening ears on Spotify and on the shelves, both virtual and actual.

Monkton x