Unfortunately for Goodnight Monsters the waters of tepid, sunny pop music do not run deep, but already team with bands like a crowded beach on a hot bank holiday.
Goodnight Monsters – Summer Challenge
www.konkurrent.nl http://www.goodnightmonsters.com/
Scandinavia – land of sunbathing and 300 days of annual sunshine? Actually, that sounds more like California. Thinking of Scandinavia you may imagine deserted roads thick with ice and winters with 22 hours of darkness each day. Strange then that Goodnight Monsters, based in Finland, have come up with a dreamy, summer-affected album in which the ocean, sand, the sunny sky and the beach are all referenced liberally. Summer Challenge is about escaping the malady of bad dreams, and dull times, and making the utmost of the summer by picking up girls, and instruments, and heading to the beach. “I want to stand by the shiny ocean/enjoy the view in slow motion,” our narrator tells us in First One On The Beach, a sun-drenched, Brian Wilson-style burst of fun about rushing to the waves and writing pop music. And, In Hanging On To A Bad Dream, as well as indulging in a spot of noctambulism, the singer is “walking in the sand with an icecube on [his] tongue”. The problem with these seaside frolics is defined by the singer in the song Mockingbird. “Mockingbird knows so many tunes/Sounds so nice but not very true,” he informs us. Quite right. The songs on this album are pure, well formed, pop music, but the leap of faith needed to believe a Finnish band making music about the sun and summer is simply too great. Something about it does not quite ring true – Scandinavia simply isn’t good old Cali Cali. Bizarrely, on the last ten seconds of Tomorrow’s Girl, and for the whole of Being Cool, the band dip their toes into a fuzzy, atmospheric style and the album lifts off onto a higher plane. The swirly, soaring whooshes on Being Cool sound just like What’s The Frequency Kenneth, and the song is better for it. There are also hard-edged guitar solos on the later songs which catch the ear, on Being Cool for example, and on Le Beat De Jacques Lapin. If only more of Summer Challenge was like this.Unfortunately for Goodnight Monsters the waters of tepid, sunny pop music do not run deep, but already team with bands like a crowded beach on a hot bank holiday. If they had balanced the record with a fuzzier, icier sound, it would have made for a more rewarding listen. Instead, they have produced a pleasant, but fairly bland, album.Words: Craig Pearce