Tuesday 3 February 2009

Ironville - Roses

Ironville are a seven piece Swedish band featuring Henrik Öhberg, who has crossed our radar before, via the Swedish micro record label Knoppar. Henrik has many of his talented sticky fingers in various musical pies with a solo project, that goes under the banner of Tvärvägen, as well as being half of a psychedelic hip hop duo called Amok.

Ironville, who formed in 2004, have an album called 'Welcome to Ironville' in the ironpipeline, which was recorded in the studio of Konie. They have just released a charming video to the song Roses (produced by Ironville and Markus Krunegård) that will beguile you with it's catchy and bouncy beat.

Roses announces it's arrival in in jaunty manner right from the violin intro, then lunges into an indie parlour tune that guaranteed to put a smile on your face. The vocal performance teeters on the edge of being strident, but Emelie Bååth's singing is actually rather lovely, like a homespun jumper that needs a bit of wearing in to bring out the furry soft patches and then soon becomes a wardrobe favourite.

The accompanying video is a visual prescription to lift the spirits. The illustrations and animation are by the boy wonder Henrik, who has animated snorkeling cats, bubble wrapped crabs and brassy beaked birds in a sweet naive style, what more could you ask for!

Ironville have a philosophy in that their band should have lots of lead singers and as many instruments on stage as possible. Well, it seems to be working and here's hoping their song writing continues to keep coming up roses...

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