We covered Finnish band Love Sport when they released their debut EP ‘Gol!’ possibly not too long after we started Nordic Music Review, so it feels pretty good to be covering their follow up, the intriguingly entitled ‘Almost Doesn’t Mean You Made It‘ – we didn’t doubt for one moment that they would release a 2nd EP, we just wondered if we’d be around to cover it. But thankfully a fair number of people are reading what we write, so we’ll keep trying to tell you about what sounds good out there right now.
Love Sport just make this great noise, slightly psychedelic, with cavorting guitars, interesting lyrics and occasionally this slightly discordant unharmonious sound, which is entirely deliberate and always keeps the music fresh and original. After a couple of weeks listening to some submissions that haven’t quite captured my attention, the opening of ‘Song for Merries’ reminds me just how good this band are, with its big guitar sound and warped pop melody. And this is actually a stronger and more consistent EP than their last effort, ‘Deadbeat Time’ is driven along with a fantastic bass and guitar line, but the highlight is quite possibly the blisteringly good ‘Calling All Stupid’, with its catchy vocals against a backdrop of swirling guitars – although its almost equalled by the heavier ‘Mrs Brisby’. The concluding track ‘Yes\2’ has a slightly different sound to it, but ends with a quite brilliant instrumental section, which only goes to emphasize quite how on the mark this band are.
Out of all our Nordic Music discoveries in the last 12 months, the collection of great sounding Finnish Indie bands, many on the excellent Soliti label, have been the most rewarding of all. Love Sport along with bands such as Mumrunner, Black Lizard (see them live in the UK this week) and most recently the astoundingly good Holy Roman – whom I believe we discovered because they were supporting Love Sport at a gig earlier this year. They all produce consistently good releases which we are determined to keep telling UK music lovers about, because theyre so relevant, interesting and great fun to listen to. Love Sport have raised the bar still further with ‘Almost Doesn’t Mean You Made It‘, and we definitely recommend it.
And to discover some great other Finnish bands check out the Soliti label artists below:
