Scandinavian countries love American-British underground rock. Those with taste in imports have garnered a slew of Nordic garage and power pop for years, a tide of strong (amazingly) English-singing outfits, of which
the Hives are but a tip of an Arctic-cooled iceberg. And for three LPs now, this coastal Gothenburg-by-way-of-Stockholm Swedish collective has shown that appreciation of our art-noise vanguard is active there as well. Davor Abazovic sings like the smart-guy deadpan spawn of
Lou Reed,
Jonathan Richman, and
Tom Verlaine, as his group adroitly coalesces those legends' old bands into elements of American '90s indie rock and chilly post-rock. At its heart,
Story revels in the continual clash of its sparse guitar strums and post-
Chairs Missing and
154 Wire, with dalliances and teases toward a harsher, more abrasive textural assault, barely restrained. ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover