Lacrosse – Bandages For The Heart

Much of our time here at TLOBF is spent picking through songs of gloom and despair made by middle aged men with beards. As such, when an album called Bandages for The Heart pops into the mailbox at TLOBF towers, with a cover featuring a crying bear on a boat, you could be forgiven for thinking that we are heading into that now familiar territory. And of course, you would be wrong. I mean, hell, there’s a track on the record called 'I See a Brightness'.Bandages For The Heart is the second album from Stockholm 6 piece Lacrosse, and was recorded by Jari Haapalainen (The Concretes/ Ed Harcourt). In recent years Sweden has garnered a reputation for high caliber indie jangle pop, and Lacrosse seem destined to continue that trend. According to the press release it represents a move to the dark side for the band. Being as the whole album rushes by at break neck speed before collapsing in the corner of the room on a sugar high, I dread to think what the debut was like. Opener 'We Are Kids' starts things with a stomping bass line before twin female/male vocals and synth whoops join the proceedings. There are “heys” and disco claps a plenty. This formula is repeated on album highlight 'You Are The Blind', which builds on a spiky guitar hook before exploding in to a chorus of “A penny for your thoughts/ and a million for your love”, replete with Motown stomping and spacey synth rushes. The song ends with a gang vocal rendition of the chorus’ hook. It’s twee pop punk done really well. If you can imagine a cross between the anthemic side of I’m from Barcelona and Los Campasinos! you are nearly there.Elsewhere on the record there’s flamenco handclaps on 'All The Little Things That You Do', aimless “la la la’s” on 'What’s Wrong With Love' and xylophones everywhere. Unicorns and animals the speak are liberally scattered across the albums lyrics. Only the title track really succeeds in changing the pace, a sort of introspective atmospheric piece of the kind that Mark Linkous does so well. While Lacrosse try to take it down a notch with “Song In The Morning”, they don’t quite pull it off, those pesky huge pop choruses muscling in half way though and turning the emotional dial back to Euphoria.If you have an allergy to super sugary indie pop that brims with killer hooks, gang vocals and big, big choruses you are going to hate this record. For everyone else, it could just be the perfect accompaniment to long summer crafternoons spent in the park with your mates. 80%Lacrosse on Myspace