You’ think that a band named Sad Day for Puppets who hail from Blackeberg, a shadowy satellite town of Stockholm that the horror film Let The Right One In was filmed in would be rather morose or grim sounding, or maybe even purveyors of death metal. But that would be to underestimate Swedish people’s power to look on the positive side of life, that’s the way with SDFP’s second album 'Pale Silver and Shiny Gold' which never really threatens to go any darker than a light-ish shade of magenta.
‘Sorrow, Sorrow’ the album opener seems to breeze in and out like a sudden breeze, this is followed by ‘Such a Waste’ whose high fuzzy guitar lines reminded this reviewer of early period Ash, i.e. putting the rock in indie rock rather than the other way round, and it works well as does the bassy anthem ‘Anne Says Pt. II’.
Whether Sad Day for Puppets are fans of Brit pop or whether it just happened organically, this album is full of little things that reminded me of 90s indie rock from the UK. The guitar line in ‘Shadows’ could have easily have been taken from an Oasis track, Anna Eklund’s vocals on ‘Monster & The Beast’ reminded me of Cerys Matthews from Catatonia and Fuzzy Feather sounded like Elastica covering a track written by The La’s. All of the tracks worked in their own particular way.
However, it was when this album strayed away to more straightforward rock and roll that it entertained less, tracks like ‘Beads’ and ‘First Time’ felt a bit insipid amongst the more rocky numbers like ‘Touch’, a big sounding sounding classic rock with a fitting guitar solo at its end.
The album finishes with ‘Tingle In My Hand’, a subdued but pleasant ending to a nice but not particularly revelatory album. As sophmore efforts go it’s really solid and when they hit the right notes on this album it’s good stuff, it’s just there’s a few too many filler tracks in between to make this album a worthwhile listen.
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