Uppsala’s Quantum Leap passed our way twice last year with tracks from their album ‘Alien Planet’ which has now been released on vinyl and celebrated with this single, ‘Forever and Ever’, the fourth from the album.
The message is (translated from the original Swedish), “Time to leave boredom and insulation trapped! Go out in the sun and enjoy nature!” On a bleak, cold, rainy and thoroughly miserable Bank Holiday Monday there’s nothing I’d like better to do. Forever and ever, amen.
In the previous two songs there were clear climate-related references, indicating they have a lot more to offer than just distorted garage punk, but I can’t cast any light on what this track refers to because it sounds as if vocalist Björn Norberg was recorded in a garage with a towel over his head. Apart from the title line he could be reciting the Uppsala telephone directory for all I know.
Usually that would matter but I’m not sure it does here. Quantum Leap have set out their stall, we know what they are about lyrically. I’ll lay odds that what concerns their fans far more is that they churn out short (and these single tracks have uniformly been short, less than three minutes each), fast-paced songs with a throbbing bass line, minimal chords which make Status Quo seem profligate, unambitious bridges and the energy required to compel their audience to bash their heads incessantly against the speakers, whether they are in a venue or on their living room wall, until they pass out.
As we’ve said before they’ve been compared to a plethora of other, far better known artists, which is justifiable as they are known to mix and match styles, including, improbably, shoegaze with 1970s prog. But on these three tracks they are laying down a style of their own and making their own quantum leap, to coin a phrase. It isn’t sophisticated, but it rocks. And this one features, again, guest vocals from Tina Gunnarsson, the lead singer of the Swedish metal band Hexed, although I was hard pressed to hear them.
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