Death and Vanilla - Are You a Dreamer?

  by Dave Goodwin

published: 4 / 7 / 2019

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Review

I can't put my finger on the reason but I seem to have an affinity with reviewing bands with the word ‘Death’ in them. It is a trifle worrying really. Anyway on to another band who go by the name Death and Vanilla - see, there you go! I can't help myself. This mob hail from Malmö, Sweden, and have a new album for release by England’s Fire Records which goes by the title of ‘Are You a Dreamer?’ The band themselves are made up of Marleen Nilsson, Magnus Bodin and Anders Hansson, who were lauded by the media for their last album ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’ from 2015. Immediately though this offering sounds a little more poppier than the last. ‘A Flaw in the Iris’ is their opening track and is just as eerie as the content on ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’ but it also has a familiar and more 60's pop oriented sound. This latest outing is as electronic-influenced as the last album and vocally reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. It is smattered with electronic drum beats and other weird and wonderful noises that you could encounter in a trip back four decades or more ago. ‘Let’s Never Leave Here’ sounds even more trippy, and could well be picked out for a soundtrack to follow the numerous ones that they have appeared on before. This one reminds me of the Velvet Underground. ‘Eye Bath’ is a 60's murder mystery on a sundrenched island somewhere you've never heard of, while ‘The Hum’ is a jungle of mixed beats, again with a 60's style vocal. A little more grand and out there, ‘Vespertine’ explodes around you, until the Nancy Sinatra style wallpaper vocals kick in again and the album drifts past on a hot evening breeze. If you like your sounds packed with trippy 60’s feel and a 80's John Foxx-laden soundbites, or you have just dipped your feet into the psychpop genre, this is a must.

Track Listing:-

1 A Flaw In the Iris
2 Let's Never Leave Here
3 Mercier
4 Eye Bath
5 The Hum
6 Nothing Is Real
7 Vespertine
8 Wallpaper Pattern

Band Links:-

http://deathandvanilla.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Death-A
https://soundcloud.com/death-and-vanil
https://twitter.com/death_vanilla

Label Links:-

https://twitter.com/firerecordings
https://www.facebook.com/Firerecords
http://www.firerecords.com/
https://firerecords.bandcamp.com/
https://instagram.com/fire_records/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Firerecor

Have a Listen:-