Swedish Death Candy - 'Are You Nervous?' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Interstellar Love Machine

2. Modern Child

3. A Date With Caligula

4. Always

5. Green

6. Space Holiday

7. Mother (Earth)

8. Slowly

9. Journey To The 13th Floor

10. Charismatic Authority

11. The Scream

All aboard the ‘Interstellar Love Machine’ for the ride of your life. Swedish Death Candy seemingly have the ability to rocket to the outer reaches of the universe and yet smoothly return to earth with the softest of landings: a journey of contrast, intrigue and beauty.

The London four-piece come together, if not from the universe, at least from across the globe. South Korean bassist, Jiwoon Wang and front man/guitarist, Louis Perry are joined by Italians, Marco Ninni on drums and Francesco Codardo on guitar. Their diversity of cultural musicality helps create vibrant, stabbing moments of raw energy, coupled with dreamy episodes that take you to very different places.

‘Are You Nervous?’ is the band’s second album and is beautifully crafted with spacey Pink Floyd and Beatles Psychedelic flourishes that you can almost feel yourself floating on. In ‘Green’ and ‘Space Holiday’ the drifting star filled soundscapes are at the fore. ‘Slowly’ takes you back to the sixties with a jangly Byrds guitar intro and some lovely reverse guitar riffs before teleporting you back to the moment with explosions of sound grounded in the now.

The band is tagged with the Psych-Rock moniker, which is a fair enough label, but their uniqueness sets them slightly apart from their contemporaries. NME likened them to Flaming Lips, Ty Segall and Melvins and they are not far wrong, but there is a uniqueness about Swedish Death Candy that could easily catapult them to the outer limits and ‘super massive’ success with this album.

These guys are real thinkers, quoting the likes of Einstein, William Blake and Oscar Wilde and the lyrics are intelligent but accessible, then subtle and poetic. The album, despite its complexities, is an easy listen: turn down the lights, close your eyes even and lose yourself in songs like ‘Always’, ‘Mother (Earth)’ and ‘Journey To The 13th Floor’.

‘Interstellar Love Machine’ sets ‘the controls to the heart of the sun’ and the album makes its re-entry with ‘Charismatic Authority’ before finally touching down with ‘The Scream’.

It’s hard to pick a stand-out track, a song to hang your space helmet on, such is the quality of the song writing throughout, but ‘Modern Child’ charts exactly what this band is all about: gigantic black hole riffs and star chasing choruses. “Girl, it blows my mind”.