Rising: The Tough Alliance: "First Class Riot" [Video] / "Silly Crimes" [Video, MP3]
Unless you speak Swedish, it's hard to find out much about Gothenburg electronic pop duo the Tough Alliance, but it won't be for long. What we do know: In 2004 and 2005, TTA members Henning Fürst and Eric Berglund released two EPs and a full-length, The New School, on their home country's Service label (Jens Lekman, Studio). Last year, they released their New Waves EP and a limited-edition instrumental album, Escaping Your Ambitions, on their own Sincerely Yours. Canada's Summer Lovers Unlimited (Crystal Castles, Teenagers) is re-releasing New Waves at the end of this month, and a second proper LP, A New Chance, lands this year in Sweden. Got all that?
The lead single from A New Chance, "First Class Riot", improves on the elements of their earlier blog favorites like Guy Debord-sampling stomper "Koka Kola Veins" and doe-eyed, dirty-mouthed love song "Holiday". Classic Swedish-pop melodies, thick bass, swooning electronics, and heavy percussion even Battles might love all lead (of course) to an unapologetically enormous chorus. In the video, Fürst and Berglund face each other as they sing about "something bright and pure, something that you never felt before," like a Scandinavian Wham! remixed by Simian Mobile Disco. Hey look, dolphins!
[from "First Class Riot" 7", out now, and the A New Chance LP, due 05/15/07 on Sincerely Yours]
On "Silly Crimes", from the forthcoming North American release of last year's New Waves EP (available for pre-order here), the duo might as well be addressing their Swedish critics-- who, according to the uber-reliable Wikipedia, take issue with the band's Human League-like reliance on backing tapes and surprising propensity for swinging baseball bats. Tuneful Magnetic Fields synths, bird-like noises, and a bass-heavy drum loop underpin a canned-strings electro-pop ditty as idyllic as it is regretful. "Doin' time for silly crimes wasn't all I had in mind," TTA confide. Well yeah, especially not with summer almost here.
MP3: > The Tough Alliance: "Silly Crimes"
[from the New Waves EP; available for pre-order from Summer Lovers Unlimited]