Arvidson - Arvidson

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 11 / 2 / 2002

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Review

This is kind of strange. Being Swedish, I picture myself as quite familiar with the Swedish indiepop scene, but all of a sudden, here’s this band from Gothenburg called Arvidson. And the strangest thing of all is that no-one I know in Gothenburg has ever heard of them! Who are these guys??? According to the sleeve, Arvidson consists of three lads with Roger Arvidson being the mastermind, and they apparently get by with a little help from their friends, as the list of guest musicians is quite long. When first listening to this CD I got the feeling that Arvidson are the kind of band that record companies would call “Beatles influenced” in their press release. Roger has a voice that sometimes sounds a tiny bit like Paul McCartney’s, but musically I wouldn’t compare them to the Fab Four. But that has never stopped record labels from comparing bands to them though. Musically I find more similarities to the Push Kings from the US (or maybe it’s just that voice again?), and other Swedish bands such as Stonecake or maybe Happydeadmen. Since most of you reading this will probably never heard of either of those two bands, I will maybe have to come up with a more suitable comparison. Teenage Fanclub perhaps? Or more accurately, Teenage Fanclub rip-offs like Seaside Stars (also a Firestation Tower-band). This is the kind of record that is neither good nor bad. It just floats right by, and sometimes you listen closely for a few minutes, but then you lose interest and it’s background music again. With all this said, I must say that it is very competent and in a better world Arvidson would probably have a hit single. I’m still fascinated by the fact that we here have a band that has managed to get a record deal in Germany and still be completely unknown to the indiepop-elite in Sweden. But then again, what is indiepop? Is Arvidson indiepop? Well, I guess not…

Track Listing:-

1 wake up
2 (i'll) bear it in mind
3 get well
4 will never know
5 get in(to) the car
6 i'd hate to see you go
7 our days
8 you caught my eye
9 still on the wrong side
10 slide
11 i hear a sound
12 daffodil

Label Links:-

http://www.firestation-records.de/
https://www.facebook.com/firestationre
https://www.youtube.com/user/Firestati