Redlinespotting is the debut album from Örnsberg (named after a Stockholm metro stop), aka Swedish musician Johan Ragnarsson. With self-professed influences such as Pet Shop Boys, Oasis, Beach Boys and Glasvegas, this debut certainly has some intrigue hanging about. As much as I wanted to like this album, it being Swedish pop and all, sadly it falls short of expectations.The wordless ‘Intro’ sets the mood for the album, shoe-gazy rhythms backed by the sound of a train on its track. What follows are ten songs about the city, about love, about work, about.. well, about life. It’s no doubt difficult to be a one-man band without over-utilizing the synthesizer, and unfortunately this overuse is prevalent on Redlinespotting, resulting in track after track melting into one another and sounding very samey. Tempos don’t change much and although Johan has a nice enough voice, his range is limited.The album’s highlights come around the midway point, in the upbeat ‘Away Away’ with its bouncy rhythm and jazzy saxophones and the minimalist ‘Every City’ (its lyrics loosely translated from Swedish singer HÃ¥kan Hailstorm’s ‘Jag Har Varit I Alla Städer’). Outside of these highlights, though, the melodies and hooks are rare and the album seems to struggle to find its footing most of the time.This is the most difficult kind of review to write, when the artist is earnest and truly believes in their work but is just unable to pull off something closer to spectacular. Redlinespotting is a pleasant enough album to listen to, but in the end, nothing really stands out and nothing sticks. While showing some promise, the lack of musical variety and the somewhat banal quality of the lyrics make this one a rather tepid debut. 61%Örnsberg on MySpace