Those Dancing Days - 'Hitten'
Next week is going to be a weird week for singles. There's stuff coming out, but not much of it, and the big hitters are quite thinly spaced-out. There's the Feeling, the Coral, Paramore, Simple Plan and Goldfrapp, and then a whole bunch of stuff which is either not very good (*cough*SmashingPumpkins*cough*) or worse, not interesting enough to write about. But, being an optimistic sort of blog, this just gives us the chance to shine a spotlight into the musty caves which lie just behind the mainstream, where tiny, fragile little songs lurk, half-blind and hairless, like baby otters.
Naturally, you've got to be very careful if you're going to do this, because the bright lights could harm the little tune-beastie, stunt his development, and maybe even cause some kind of permanent organ damage. Having said that, if we don't make the effort to show that they ARE there, some redeveloper may dig up the entire musical riverbed in a attempt to widen the mainstream (it's quite wide enough already, thanks), thus destroying their natural habitat and greatly reducing the aesthetic appeal of the whole river area.
So, with that in mind, how's about I use this whole otter/riverbed analogy to outrageously patronise this band Those Dancing Days, whose single 'Hitten' is proper old school indie pop, like Belle And Sebastian or the Concretes used to do, only with an Adele-type singer, and is really very very good indeed.
Hi-Fi Heart's blog has nailed the appeal of a song like this, claiming that These Dancing Days could well wind up as one of those bands which .
Not that there's anything wrong with loving music for a short period. Often those are the songs you'll hear years later and they'll bring you right back to that week when you loved them, with dizzying force. It's a form of musical vertigo and it's brilliant fun (assuming the week you loved the song isn't also the week where something absolutely dreadful happened, in which case you'll end up reliving the whole thing, and that's not nice).
Anyway, back to These Dancing Days. They're all girls, they are all teenagers and they're all Swedish. These are not things you can hear in their music, apart from that peculiar skill the Swedish have for making pop songs that are so stuffed with giddy thrills they can cause mass outbreaks of swooning among sensitive fans.
What you mainly hear is a beautifully crafted song, sung beautifully, and performed with rickety gusto, so you avoid what is now being called 'The Adele Over-Production Situation'.
I particularly like the bit where their synth just dies, about 15 seconds in. Did someone kick a plug out of the wall during recording? Genius!
Download: Out now
CD Released: February 11th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
I love this song! The chorus feels like something I've been singing for ages.
However, they dont remind me of Adele. Not at all.
But I still love this song, and I've downloaded a few of their other songs - they're all brilliant.