Jim's Favorite Nordic and/or Scandinavian Albums of 2007
Alphabetically! Click on cover scans for purchasing options.
Hear more of the best Scandinavian & Nordic music on the Jim's Pick Archive page

BEST OF 2007… Happens every year, an 11th hour addition to our mailorder catalog, in fact it's not even here yet... Pre-order this and we'll try and have it to you before the Holidays! Mattias Barjed, glowering guitarist for The Soundtrack of Our Lives, creates and curates this double-album soundtrack (to a hip new Swedish TV miniseries Upp Till Kamp) that plays out like a retro-rock opera! Features contributions from Barjed's TSOOL bandmates, plus members of Elope, Hipwhips, Jan Martens Frustration and many more. Also includes a new, unreleased song by The Tallest Man On Earth. Album of the year! Listen: Set Us Free • Stay With Me Forever • Coming Down Cold

BEST OF 2007… Black Belt traffic in gritty garage-rock heaviosity, Swedish stonerrock with plenty of muscle, and a righteous late-60s-early-70s vibe. Fans of fellow Scandinavians Elope, Motorpsycho and The Soundtrack of Our Lives will find plenty to adore here: big fuzzy guitars, fringe jackets, overdriven vocals, frayed denim, sweet soul and tons of swagger. CD is packaged extravagantly...in a plush full-color gatefold jacket with a elegant velum wrap, while inside there's a booklet that folds out in the shape of a cross and receives an NC-17 Rating. Listen: Road Crew • Hold On • Other Hell

BEST OF 2007… This new album finds Swedish retro-psych-prog act Black Bonzo exploring even more glorious 60s and 70s progressive rock trajectories, stupendous stadium rock, the soundtrack to a hazy, hairy, heavenly bygone era. Led by Magnus Lindgren prog-perfect vocals and Nicklas Åhlund’s magnificent organ sojourns Black Bonzo resurrects Queen, Uriah Heap, Yes, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, even a hint of Kansas. Could it be Black Bonzo has become even more adept at crinkling the time/space continuum? Indeed, they have. Listen: Thorns Upon A Crown • The Well • Ten Feet Away

BEST OF 2007… As the guy releasing The Chrysler's previous two albums (Failures & Sparks and Cold War Classic) in the States when I say that new album The Benelux Years is The Chrysler's Masterpiece it's not to take away from what came before it! Housed in a handsome matte digipak, here are the latest chapters of The Chryslerstory: deftly wrought mysterioso pop, pastoral psychedelia, and crackling bonfire-folk, more epic and elemental than ever before. Rich in melancholy, harmonies and dynamics, The Chrysler remains one of my most cherished bands. Listen: I Keep My Eye On You Sparrow • Snow

BEST OF 2007… Welcome to Concretes 2.0! Vocalist Victoria has left the band, but The Concretes soldier on, joined by guest stars like The Bear Quartet’s Jari Haapalainen and Swedish labelmate Frida Hyvonen. Co-founders Lisa and Maria are now handling the vocal duties and the pop-orchestra behind them remains melodic and inventive: their frothy, frosty, fairie-dusted folktronica is in fine fettle! If you need some updated namedropping Concretes 2.0 is a bit more like Maria's folksier band Heikki and El Perro Del Marr in spots, all in all a triumph i the face of adversity. Listen: Oh Boy • Kids

BEST OF 2007… 9 Distilled Dreams explores Swedish trio Elope’s dreamy side, their hazy mellowosity, and as it happens could be the best album of their career. Whereas their 2004 debut, The No Name Record, stirred Cream, Badfinger, and The Beatles into their steamrolling stoner melodicism; and 2005's 3WD offered throwback, electrified prog(gier)-rock majesties; here within the misty-eyed classic rock escapism, harrowing harmonies and meandering psychedelia of 9 Distilled Dreams you'll find references to Big Star, Pink Floyd, Neil Young and CSNY. Listen: Black Eyed Citizen • No Don't

BEST OF 2007… Ah, weirdness from Finland, an oxymoron? Helsinki's The Hypnomen parlay a peculiar brand of pan-euro psychedelia that is as flambouyant as it is accomplished, plus they've been at it for more than a decade and it shows in their ability to incorporate corporeal jazz, megalithic riff bombast, Santana-styled afro-beat grooves, freaky exotica and West Coast harmonies, even a freakin' drum solo! Yes, really. 100-proof Summer Psych, surreal and serene. Fans of Motorpsycho, ? and the Mysterians, Sleepyard, TSOOL, and Spiritualized. Listen: The Seeker • Sacred Mountain Revisited

BEST OF 2007… Parasol fave backed by a small symphony! What's not to like? An impressive, intriguing import-only release from Swedish songstress Frida Hyvönen, entitled Frida Hyvönen Gives You: Music from the Dance Performance 'Pudel'. Here she and her piano are backed by a small orchestra and the occasional choir for ten all new original songs. The results are spellbinding, with Frida in fine voice and arrangements bordering on sumptuous. Fans of Frida's debut album, anything by Cat Power, and Julie Doiron's latest need this! Listen: Fall Is My Lover • This Night I Recall You

BEST OF 2007… Second and sadly the last album of primal garage-rock from Oslo, Norway supergroup My Midnight Creeps, featuring the guitarists from Madrugada and Ricochets, the follow up to their self-titled debut. Possessed by the vengeful specter of a half-century of wanton blues, sinister psychedelia, and gargantuan garage rock, MMC pay tribute to 13h Floor Elevators, Stones, Stooges, Sonics, Spacemen 3, Union Carbide Productions, Nick Cave, along with a bluesier take on modern marvels like B.R.M.C. and Black Angels. Listen: Don't Let Them Bring You Down • Love Is Gone

BEST OF 2007… Their debut EP finds newcomers Norma parlaying a monumental brand of tripped-out hypno-electro-rock majesty driven by motorik beats. Gloomy, zoomy, post-rock symphonies comparable in their epic scope, dynamics, and totally cosmic bombast to fellow Scandinavians Eskju Divine, Serena Maneesh, The Lionheart Brothers and Moonbabies. Four epics, two of them clocking in over 8 minutes! 180 proof shoegaze rock, invoking the corporeal spirits of klassic krautrock, Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, M83, Mogwai, Sigur Ros, etc. Listen: The Storm

BEST OF 2007… First off, I LOVE grandiose boy/girl duets by Swedish twins. You put that combo together and I’ll love it, promise. And gosh bless 'em upstart Swedish guitar-pop sibling duo Tupelo Honeys have done just that! Think David Fridlund and Sara Culler, Vega, and our own Moonbabies; and I’ll harken back to The Delgados, The Go-Betweens, and OK, I'll admit it: The Dream Academy. Of course others have dropped names like Arcade Fire, Love Is All and Camera Obscura, but enough comparisons, the tunes truly do tell the story... Listen: Boy, You’re All Right • Andy, Are You Sure?