Finland’s BRANDED WOMEN indulge us in the beast called twang. Their understated, slow burn pop really begins to smoulder by the time you get to “You Know Me” on the “Velvet Hours – Stolen Moments” album. There’s a dark, secret agent vibe to their sound which is more Matt Helm than James Bond if you get my drift. Those swirling psychedelic keyboards offset any tradition comparison. They remind me of The Paradise Motel without actually sounding like them. There’s no conventional pigeonhole for them although they deserve to sell as many “units” as The Cardigans. That Scandanavian mystique provides multi-layered possibilities to the listener with a cinematic canvas. This is ideal soundtrack music because it swings surreptitiously and works equally well at different volumes to convey alternate moods. I think their strength lies in the fact that it never cuts loose into overstatement. That’s what sets it apart. Where it sears itself “brand”-like into your napper. A cool breeze of an album that’ll be just the companion you need as they nights start drawing in toward winter.
“Second Best” is the first single from the follow-up album and it’s anything but. The evocation of their debut have been honed to create something that’ll sound very infectious on the radio. The additional song on the cd single is“Not A Love Song”, a hypnotic shuffle that could well have been assembled in Australia. It has that isolated, patently twisted whiff that something could go off at any conceivable second. I like that suspense factor and wish that more acts would employ it
Photo by Aki Roukala
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