Charade - Keeping Up Appearances

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 11 / 2 / 2009

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It’s been almost three years since the Charade released their last album, 'A Real Life Drama'. Since then they have, among other things, played live for the first time ever, and also found the time to record the eleven new songs which makes up this third record, 'Keeping Up Appearances'. Things haven’t moved on too much in the Charade HQ since we last heard from them. They still play mainly jangly indiepop, with some country influences thrown in here and there (on 'Ballad of Uneasy Rider' for example), with Ingela Matsson’s voice being the main focus of attention, even though she shares the vocal duties with guitarist Magnus Karlsson on many of the songs. This is one of those records that becomes a bit boring after a while, as most of the songs sounds more or less the same. But some of the tracks stand out, like 'Springtime Fever' and the closing 'Stockholm April 2007', which is a kind of follow-up to the song 'Stockholm January 2005' from their debut album. Most of all, the Charade sound like a band that would fit perfectly onto the Swedish label Labrador, home of bands like the Acid House Kings and Club 8, and which has a love of releasing summery indiepop records with glockenspiel and handclaps. I think that if you like their previous efforts you can spend your last money on this without having any second thoughts.

Track Listing:-

1 Keeping Up Appearances
2 The World Is Going Under
3 I Used to Live in the 80's
4 What's a Normal Person?
5 Ballad of Uneasy Rider (I'm a Loaded Gun)
6 Heroes and Villans
7 The Perfect Shade of Grey
8 You Don't Wanna Know
9 Springtime Fever
10 140 bpm Misery Love Song
11 Stockholm April 2007

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