Album review : BLUES PILLS – Birthday
Pete Feenstra chatted to guitarist Zach Anderson and drummer André Kvarnström for his show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio. First broadcast 28 July 2024.
Throwdown Entertainment / BMG Rights Mascot [Release date : 09.08.24]
Swedish rock band Blues Pills have delivered one of the most vibrant and relevant pop rock albums of the year.
‘Birthday’ bursts with unfettered vitality, spontaneity, innovative ideas, burning intensity, locked in grooves and contemporary crafted pop rock.
It strikes the perfect balance between a ‘live in the studio’ vibe while incorporating lilting melodies, big dynamics and is easily their best song.
It’s been suggested that this album can be interpreted as a new beginning for a band who haven’t released an album for 4 years.
And while there are certainly new musical directions in the mix, ‘Birthday’ feels more like a natural evolution and a nascent maturity.
After all, this is a band who up to this point were best known for a retro mix of rock-blues and pyschedelia, while their previous record company marketed them to a metal crowd.
In truth, they’ve always aligned their natural energy with a desire to experiment, and when the song demands it slip into a soulful feel.
As a result, ‘Birthday’ feels like a natural amalgam of those influences with a sharper focus on song structure and big hooks.
It’s no coincidence that their new producer is the Swedish hit maker Freddy Alexander, who has evidently tapped into the band’s energy levels, tightened the arrangements, polished the hooks and given the album a contemporary mix.
It’s very much a song driven album, full of Erin Larsson’s animated vocals, plenty of sumptuous melodies and is relentlessly driven by the locked-in rhythm section of bassist André Kvarnström and drummer Kristoffer Schander.
This leaves guitarist Zack Anderson to serve the songs with subtle tone colours and significant parts, rather than dominating proceedings with overbearing solos.
The net result is a concise, high energy album full of exhilarating moments which takes in everything from reflective to humorous songs and even the sharply contrasting anger of the opening title track.
The female perspective lyrics bring a new edge to the collective bluster and sets out a big sounding template for the album as a whole, though it’s not until the following ‘Don’t You Love It’ that they hit bull’s-eye.
A potent mix of pounding drums, rumbling bass and zippy vocal acts like an adrenalin rush, leading to the kind of stop-time catchy sing-along hook, which will surely be heard on plenty of beaches around Europe this summer.
The following ‘Bad Choices’ opens with an up-in-the-mix shrill vocal flanked by a bass and handclaps, while the inevitable explosive hook leads to a percussive groove with mixed back unison guitar lines and a repeated hypnotic riff.
You could argue the track finishes too soon, but the fact all the tracks are within the 3 minute range which gives the album its vitality.
‘Top Of The Sky’ for example, is a waltz like emotive sweeping ballad which manages to gather momentum and make its point before a subtle solitary vocal fade in little over 3 minutes.
There’s polished song craft here, with no wasted words, notes or solos. Everything flows naturally into the chorus, while several perfunctory finishes always leave the listener wanting more
It’s almost as if after a 4 year break from recording they’ve seen the light, pushed the right switch and found a contemporary niche.
Another important facet to the album is the band’s versatility and their willingness to explore different musical directions.
This is especially so on ‘Like A Drug’. A slow building enveloping groove, it simmers, bubbles up and ultimately beguiles us with a mix of Erin’s high register vocal and warmer backing vocals with layered voice and guitar.
Such is the sonic quality of the track that it makes the following ‘Piggy Back Ride’ seems almost frivolous.
Opening with a quasi Steve Miller riff, thumping bass and squeaky vocal, it’s all about the immediacy of the catchy hook and the humour of the lyrics.
The key to the track is the way it fits the flow and sequencing of the album to give it a lift.
And so to ‘Holding Me Back’, another highlight on which the band explodes like a spring coil, allowing the music to brilliantly illuminate the angst ridden vocals.
It achieves that all too rare moment where the band captures their essential live sound in a polished studio production.
They follow it with the meditative opening of ‘Somebody Better’, which acts like the calm before the storm. The rhythm section charges into the verse like a steam engine, while Anderson adds a slightly distorted tone leaving Erin to deliver a fiery chorus.
It’s intuitively produced track that captures the band in full tilt on a wall of sound with a great lyric on which Erin pushes her vocal to the limit over a very rare guitar solo.
“You change your mind like a sweater, you’re gone and then we’re together.”
The nourish ‘‘Shadows’ brings unexpected dirge, as Zack switches to slide and buzz tone guitar, while Erin adds some exaggerated phrasing on a song not too far removed from Nick Cave territory.
‘I Don’t Wanna Get Back On That Horse Again’ is a choral tinged ballad with emotional and musical substance, as Zack finally cast aside his restraint on a climatic solo, effortless matched by Erin top range on another heavy duty song.
The low key, mid-tempo and reflective ‘What Has This Life Done To You’ bookends the album with a soulful song that opens like Etta James ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’, but builds into a short resolving guitar solo with processed vocal outro.
Inventive to the end, ‘Birthday’ is a contemporary pop rock album of the highest order. ****
Review by Pete Feenstra
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)
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