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As far as mainland Europe is concerned,
Stockholm has been the lauded rock 'n' roll epicentre of recent times.
Occasionally a band would slip out of the harvest from the farm fields of
Euro pop and start to makes waves in a more westerly direction - The
Raveonettes most recently.
Previously hidden at the furthest tip north in Norway (Stokmarknes to be precise), a new gasoline-fuelled rock 'n' roll torch is about to be set off, blazing in a trail following its bearers: Madrugada with their third, and surely breakthrough, album Grit.
Recorded in Berlin with PJ Harvey producer
Head, the album builds on Madruduga's earlier efforts which saw them persuade
400,000 people to cough up their euros.
Imagine a red lit ricketty bar in a nowhere town of
America's Midwest, with leather-clad, spirit-guzzling desert caricatures.
The bone white, bone thin, black-dressed band playing in the background would
be Madrugada. As guitarist Robert Bur�s admits, growing up in a valley with
160 people leaves you plenty of time to discover guitar players.
With seclusion amongst the Northern Lights, it's as if depressing long
winter nights soaked up The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and
The Cramps in a marriage with singer Sivert H�yem's awesome whisky-doused Iggy Pop / Mark Lanegan / Dave Wyndorf / Nick Cave vocals,
creating one of the most original stoner psychedelic sounds.
Let's zoom straight to track eight, Hands Up I Love
You, because it descends so beautifully, and is simply one of the best songs
you'll ever hear. H�yem's sullen Lou Reed-esque spoken word drapes over a
road tripping psychedelic ballad. It screams next single but serves better
as an album treasure.
But let's not discount the seven preceding numbers.
Blues-y opener Bloodshot Adult Commitment gets things off at the perfect
pace, sounding like a youthful Monster Magnet. Critic f**k you Ready
is a garage rock stomper, with H�yem lashing about like Iggy on quaaludes
and coke in 1969, while I Don't Fit sloshes in a broody buzzed ballad orgy of
echoing drums, slow burned solos and again, H�yem's decadent tonsil
work.
"Madrugada" translates from the Spanish as "the hour before sunrise" and the music is fitting. Although choosing Majesty as the
first single seems an odd choice (a snow-tipped Nick Cave serenade on a
record bleeding garage rock floor), by Belladonna, the penultimate gargantua of a song, you're left
tripping on H�yem's intense but doped vocals.
What a band... What an album...
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