Following the decks-clearing A Retrospective, which collected both of
Mixtapes & Cellmates' early EPs, the Swedish quartet's self-titled debut full-length sounds like the culmination of those early tracks' promise. Unapologetically influenced by the turn of the '90s shoegazer scene (they note
My Bloody Valentine in particular as a personal touchstone), the band does favor effects-heavy, droning guitar and keyboard lines, and lead singer
Robert Svensson has that trademark diffident, can't-be-bothered delivery. But where so many shoegazer bands fell short of the mark was their songwriting, apparently hoping that cool atmosphere would be enough to put them across. In contrast,
Mixtapes & Cellmates keep the shoegazery aspects of their sound well in the background, keeping the album's primary focus on the songs themselves, which are a consistently solid lot. "Dress Up Wear Down" makes good use of the tense interplay between the jittery drums and chicken-scratch rhythm guitar line and the dreamy, winsome harmonies of
Svensson and bassist Matilda Berggren. "Quiet" puts Johan Fagerberg's synths in the spotlight, turning it into a brief, nervy bit of new wave revivalism following the acoustic guitars-and-strings minimalism of "The Better Half of Cynical Boys," and that sense of variety, both in the songs and in their arrangements, is key to the considerable charms of this album.
Mixtapes & Cellmates sounds like the work of a less sprawling, more focused
Broken Social Scene, with that band's inventive eclecticism constrained by a stronger focus on concise, well-constructed pop songs. ~ Stewart Mason