Lacrosse - Bandages For The Heart (Album)
Lacrosse is an incredibly cute band from Sweden. They’re the best thing to come out of the place, I think, apart, of course, from...IKEA and vikings and tall, attractive blondes.
Anyways, enough of the Swedes; there are six of them in the band and they’re nothing short of adorable. They rock out in a style that I’m dying to dub “SWEETCORE”. The genre of “SWEETCORE” includes, but is not limited to: Los Campesinos, Operator Please, Metric, Cars Can Be Blue and Soko.
Therefore, the following feelings I had about Bandages For The Heart make perfect sense: The opening track struck me as something that Phoenix might have done. Then, almost immediately I thought, no, that’s not Phoenix; it’s more like Los Campesinos. The cd kept spinning in its place and I was proven to be wrong yet again. It seemed at times that the music was far too mournful to actually be Los Campesinos with their infinite perk. Could it have been maybe, The Arcade Fire or The Postal Service?
Comparisons aside, my personal favourite song from the album is You Are Blind. The lyric “a penny for your thoughts and a million for your love” is unmistakably brilliant. It’s also very sweet, because, y’know ... that’s a LOT of pennies!
The whole album resonates with a sing-song sweetness, that gets slightly darker as it edges towards the last song. Or, perhaps I just became gradually more aware of the melancholy as I kept listening. It’s a far more intelligent record than it seems to be at face value. The loveliness is deceptive.
I just know that my flatmate will love this. And she just adores all of that kitschy, indie-pop, adora-phrenalia. Lacrosse’s lead singer describes Bandages For The Heart as sounding something like “a cross between a cactus and a kitten.” I’m looking to disagree. I want to say it sounds like being shot in the arm with a puppy.
