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AllMusic
Swedish group Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck occupy the same "twee" and quirk-folk realm as predecessors such as Belle & Sebastian and Bright Eyes. The eight-piece band certainly isn't trying to hide the influence of the former, with mournful trumpets occasionally breezing through their orchestral acoustic pop and a fey Stuart Murdoch-like lead vocal often augmented by an accompanying female voice. Even the cover of Days Come and Go nods to the Scottish group. Nevertheless, there is something utterly guileless here, despite the band's sometimes derivative nature, and in "Let's Watch the Sunrise" the group only uses the Belle & Sebastian medium as an entry point to find a strident beauty that is purely their own. Here, a martial drumbeat spurs the song into a crescendo, the singer cries desperately about the street lights, and the song cracks wide open into melodic glory. As "Moves on the Screen" gathers heat, the band moves into Bright Eyes territory, with a galloping, shifting meter and a more caustic tone creeping into the vocals. Instrumentally, the large ensemble creates an expansive yet somehow featherweight and nuanced sound, with organ, banjo, woodwinds, and trumpets occasionally drifting in and making brief but clear statements. "You've Got a Friend to Lean On" nods to Morrissey at his most infectious, with a singsongy, rhythmically acute chorus, while the sparer "Days Come and Go" ushers a willfully depressive bent into the proceedings. Nevertheless, despite the group wearing distinct — mostly Anglo-pop — influences on their collective sleeve, one can't fake pretty melodies and unerring pop sensibilities. There's also something appealingly D.I.Y. yet paradoxically rich and full about the recording circumstances that make this an album to pay attention to. Especially if any of the aforementioned influences are a significant part of one's vocabulary.
08, Erik Hage Original Article Here
Beat Happening
Anyone who likes the honest qualities in music
will like this. It features nine tracks of crafted
melodious music utilising slightly unusual instrumentation
but without all the over-the-top studio
production and compression and synthesizers
you find on a Thrills recording, for example. I
think I have a soft spot for anything that isn't an
American or English accent in it at the moment
- it just spangles my charm buttons. Big band
though, so they ain't gonna make any money.
Eight-strong's a four pizza meal time, so tours =
loads a £££. But whatever, this recording is an
insight into a band who sat home late for fun just
making pretty songs for you and I, and us, and
it's all for the love.... But then again, look at the
Polyphonic Spree - they're minted surely?
04/08, #1
Clash
The latest gang of Swedes aiming to out-twee the Brits, Mockingbird,
Wish Me Luck is the music of the Wennergren brothers writ large: folky
strums transformed into the soundtrack to a lost '60s movie of which
Stuart Murdoch has the only surviving copy. It's probably fitting that the
debut album by a band named after a collection of short stories should
consist of songs recorded periodically over the past four years. At times,
it shows - a pedestrian opening gradually quickens with the Calexicoesque
'The Way That You Paint It', only overstretch themselves on the
camp melodrama of the title track. They may wear their influences like
badges on a parka - but they sport them better than most.
09/08, #29
Incendiary Magazine
Not to be confused with a punk band from California of the same name, Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck originate from the town ofÄngelholm in Sweden. Their label (Blowup records) describes them as an eight-piece pop-orchestra, and as characterisations go
this is pretty accurate. Their debut album, Days Come And Go, holds sharp pop melodies comprised of customary guitar and drums,
along with keyboard, brass, woodwind and vocal harmonies. The result is a beautifully crafted and flowing record.
One of the best features of ‘Days is the lead vocal from Joakim, and the highlights of the record are the tracks Summer Again, Step
In Concrete and New Beginnings where his singing resounds with emotion. Lyrically, Mockingbird tap into the great tradition of
songwriters who eruditely bemoan failed romance and yearn for fresh opportunities (have songs been written about anything else?).“So take me out tonight/take me somewhere where someone cares” pleads Joakim (or Mozzer – Ed) on Let’s Watch The Sunrise,
and on Step In Concrete he worries “I wake up with empty bottles next to me/the smell of apathy”. This could have given the songs a
maudlin edge, but the punch of the album is ultimately uplifting because of the music the lyrics are set to. When the instrumental
section of the band find their rhythm – with thumping drums, Marr-esque jangly lead-guitar and deeply resonating trumpet – the
songs have a sparkling energy.
Scandinavian music may not get the most coverage but, as with other Swedish bands who I have heard, Mockingbird has a knack
for catchy song-writing and a brilliant pop sensibility. ‘Indie pop’ aficionados will not find much innovation here, but should gain
pleasure from hearing the latest addition to the genre. “It gets harder every year to wake up in the same old room,” sings Joakim on
Summer Again, but listening to this album makes it more bearable.
21/8/08, Craig Pearce Original Article Here
Kitten Painting
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck are yet more Swedes going pop! Orchestral pop with a wee nod to Belle and Sebastian in their stylings to be precise (check their record cover design).
Their album ‘Days Come and Go’ is chocka with rinky-dink tunes that fill out into sweet-hearted, expansive sing-alongs thanks to some nifty instrumentation. There’s mariachi brass expanding the songs into super wide screen sunset anthems, folkily baroque trills of flute, ice-cream tingles of glockenspiel... Mockingbird Wish Me Luck are an eight-piece band and they sound like it.
Centre-piece song 'Days Come And Go' packs all in all of the above and chucks in a massed choir of voices for good measure, ensuring that epic sweep is full-on. “Take me out tonight, take me somewhere where someone cares” they sing, lyrically echoing The Smiths on ‘Let’s Watch The Sunrise’, a catch-in-the-throat, banjo-plucking pop lament soothed smooth with brass and percussion. ‘Step In Concrete’ lilts along irresistibly, twinkling amongst Afro guitars, topped with a trumpet solo. ‘New Beginnings’ is made for doing an indie-pop quickstep too. ‘Summer Again’ winds up with a Camberwick Green music box whirr built from banjos and glockenspiel, toyshop pop. By the time 'Days Come and Go' has been and gone, you’ll be fully summer-shined. A pop album for picnic days and warm nights of dancing with all the windows open.
25/5/08 Original Article Here
Kruger
Taking their name from a Bukowski poetry
collection, Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck
aren't haunted by the misanthropy of the
Poet Laureate of Skid Row, instead creating
a world of wistful nostalgia that draws
obvious comparison to Kings of Convenience
and Belle & Sebastian.
Everything from the album title and cover
to the final note is drenched in a sepia hue,
which while affording the album a timeless
blush, suggests an over attachment to their
influences, starting at Simon and Garfunkle
and following a linear path through to today.
As a fan of all of the above, it works for me,
but some may find it too narrow.
The real strength of the album lies in the
orchestration, with trombones, flutes and
fiddles adding a never-superfluous warmth
to an already sincere album of hindsight
and regret. Standout track Let's Watch The
Sunrise suggests the potential to usurp KoC
as Scandinavia's finest exponents of indiefolk.
06/08 #17 MK
muzic.se [translation]
Mockingbird, wish me luck is an 8-piece band from Ängelholm that's been signed by the Londonbased label Blow Up Records. It's easy to understand, after listening to their debut album Days Come and Go, why the interest was raised on the other side of the channel. The album is packed with pop songs that make most of the other swedish pop music out 2008 grow pale.
The bands influences are many. Before I deal with them, I just want to explain why bringing up influences are important for a review like this. As this is Mockingbird, wish me luck debut, most people have no idea what kind of music they can expect. To clarify, in a relatively easy way, how the band sounds I choose to mention well-known artists they sound a bit like. I hope your idea of the band's music becomes clearer when I compare them to Bright Eyes, Neutral Milk Hotel and perhaps foremost The Elected. Like The Elected Mockingbird… play gentle and sunny pop. Perhaps the prime example of their summer kissed songs are the single "Pictures (Too Big To Fit in a Sight)", which could well turn out to be an international hit.
There's several songs of very high quality on the record, but perhaps "Let's Watch the Sunrise" stands out a little extra. If you want to be a bit mean, you can always argue that what awoke the interest in England was the song "Days Come and Go." The song's chorus sounds very similar to Suede, and that (as everyone knows) makes most Englishmen go crazy. 4/5
18/6/08 läsa den ursprungliga artikeln på svenska
music-news.com
Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck are an 8-piece from Sweden. This 9 track album has a good time indie - pop
feel to it as well as an eerie / earthy vocal throughout, track 1 also has beautiful harmonies which reminds
me a little of 'Beachwood Sparks’ and 'Kings of Convenience’.
Throughout the album you can hear strong solo vocals, lovely raw instruments and a folky feel in places.
If you like your bands with a hint of the velvet Underground, Gene and even a touch of Radiohead in the
vocals now and again, check this album out.
It’s a refreshing new album out now on Blow Up Records.
07/08
NME
In the land of orchestral
indie pop, the bloodline is
always pure, meaning that
the genre often wears the
glazed expression of the
terminally inbred. Step forward, please,
the cherub-cheeked, flaxen-haired faces
of MWML: eight young Swedes who
DIYed their debut in their parents' flats.
This was a years-long labour of love and
it shows: the arrangements are knitted
like lace doilies, all apologetically
parping brass overlain on trembling
flutes, topped by wry but sincere
hometown poetry. That's not to say it
lacks triumphs: 'New Beginnings'
especially bops along like a marzipan E-Street Band, but sat so firmly in the vale
of their Belle & Sebastian forebears, it's
difficult to see what they're adding to
the gene pool.
12/07/08
NUDE
This Swedish, eight-piece
orchestral pop band's first release,
at nine songs, is short, sweet and
apparently perfectly formed.
Flutes, trumpets, and trombones
feature alongside bass, percussion
and guitar. And along with the
somewhat whimsical vocals, this
leaves Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck
open to comparisons to Belle and
Sebastian.
It sounds good, and on
occasions, very good. 'Pictures
(Too Big To Fit in A Sight)' is a
catchy, poppy break-up tune and
perhaps the most memorable on
the album. 'Summer Again' is a
trip back to childhood's music
boxes and fairgrounds, and
though a little long, is a well chosen
closing track.
05/08, #13
NWT [translation]
Briljant indiepop: It would be easy to get caught up in parallels with Belle & Sebastian. It would also be very unfair. The Ängelholm band Mockingbird, wish me luck obviously has the Scottish indiepop band as "role models" but this record is far from just a pale copy. Days come and go is composed of nine wonderful small compositions, decorated with unexpected melodichanges and arrangements that makes me think of both Love and Bright Eyes. The remote choir, trumpet and singer Joakim Norströms desperate "I try, I do, I do" at the end of the title track are among the highlights. Likewise, the short but wonderful Pictures. Many of these indiepop collectives (the band consists of eight members) can often become too sugary sweet and straggly but there are no such tendencies here. Days come and go will surely be played on repeat at many late night student parties this autumn. 4/5
13/06/08 läsa den ursprungliga artikeln på svenska
Plan B
An eight-piece Swedish
indie orchestra, MWML
make music to soundtrack endless summer
days, lazy and sweet, beaches and fields
drenched in light. Single 'Pictures (Too Big To
Fit In A Sight)' highlights their most acute use
of melody; whimsical and touching, it's akin
to Belle And Sebastian, as is the entire
album.
08/08, #36
Stool Pigeon
God only knows why, but the
Swedes are super proficient at doing
pop music. Thank/blame Abba,
depending on whether you actually
like pop, but here’s another good
band straight out of... Ängelholm.
They used to be called Sibyl Vane,
now they're named after a
Bukowski book. Think The
Concretes with strings and a
folky/indie edge. Grand songs,
delivered well. Belle and Sebastian
and Neutral Milk Hotel in bed
with Agnetha Fältskog?
05/08, #16
Sydsvenskan [translation]
If there's nothing else to do, you can always make music. Or, creativity is a child of boredom. Or any other appropriate saying that could explain the combination of eight people from Ängelholm and nine wonderful indiepop songs. The foundation is the usual vocals, guitar, bass, drums, but the instruments are more gently played and the voice is changing between aching, sad and rather firm. In addition, various brass instruments and some other things help to create nuance and variation. If you like Belle and Sebastian, early David and the Citizens, acoustic seriousness and spastic popkids there is a good chance you'll like this.
Best track: Pictures (Too Big To Fit in a Sight) 4/5
17/06/08 läsa den ursprungliga artikeln på svenska
planet mondo blog
MWML seem to specialize in songs sketched in the neat clean lines of Scandanavian designs, blended with the muted toots of trumpets, trombones and the jolly melancholy of Nick Drake on a sunny day all finished off with a polite pop polish. But don’t just take my word for it - why not taste test one of their Scanda-pops below?
27/05/08 Original Article Here
The Sunday Experience blog / losingtoday.com
Named after a collection of poetry by Charles Bukowski this dinky little release is by all accounts selling out fast - so you better get your skates on fast for what could be the soundtrack to summer - if that is we get a summer... Already described - and perfectly I have to say - as Jens Lekman fronting Belle and Sebastian - the band have been busy tinkering away in various parents apartments putting flesh to the melodic frames of Daniel and Niklas' pop vision. The result - a breathlessly softly enchanting carnival of sound that flickers and flirts amorously in the beguiling myriads of demurring perfumed folk pop. 'pictures (too big to fit in a sight)' is silkily braided by the arresting passage of flute florets that caress fully channel amid the softly shuffling banks of lilting rustic cascades that tumble and tread delicately to play peek - a - boo like some forest dwelling impish apparitions, the melodies all the time wrapped in a timeless craft bewitching with their magical underbelly of pepper corned woodland crispness and finitely cocooning seduction. A bit of a gem if you ask me. Flip the disc for more willowy wonder in the shape of the twee invested soft centred 'a note in the margin' - this up-tempo sun bathed bitter sweetly toned beauty skips and hops daintily twinkling and teasing the senses with its shanty like carousel of briskly despatched acoustic accents that listening wise provides the perfect accompaniment for an afternoon lazing in the shade observing the world at large zipping by in a blur. www.blowuprecords.com
01/06/08 Original Article Here
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indie MP3: Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck supporting Camera Obscura
A Thursday night in London town and a ticket to see Camera Obscura. All is right with the world. Or not. I am super tired after a hectic night seeing The Brian Jonestown Massacre the night before (they were good, but a long way from great). I digress. The first band we properly catch are a new band on me from Sweden, called - Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck.
Tom first blogged about them back in March of the year likening the band to Belle and Sebastian and Jens Lekman. I can, after seeing them say this is a good starting point. There are 8 people on stage - trombones, guitars, trumpets and all. The first thing that strikes me about the band is their youth. They look so young. Then I am slowly drawn into their Belle and Sebastian styled pop as they start really well and save for a little dip mid set they pretty much pull off the tough job of playing to a large and largely disinterested crowd. I picked up their début LP 'Days Come and Go' on the way out of the venue - so a review will surely follow.
18/07//08 Original Article Here
gigcam blog : Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck supporting Camera Obscura
One flyer I saw claimed they were Belle and Sebastian as fronted by Jens Lekman and I can't really argue with that, if anything they were even better. Got their CD at the gig, Days Come And Go, sounds good on first listen. What have they been putting in the water in Scandinavia for the last twenty years? There seem to be loads of good bands emerging, especially from Norway, and like this lot, from Sweden.
17/07//08 Original Article Here
clashmusic.com: Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck supporting Camera Obscura
The crowd tonight are hellish; completely disinterested, proceeding to talk their
way through the whole of Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck’s set.
The Bukowski-inspired Swedish eight-piece try to let their orchestral, handclapinfused
indie-pop do the talking, but you can’t help but feel that they need to
command the audience – silence them, in a way. But alas, there’s a limit to this.
Their LP, Days Come And Go, has a wonderful knack of framing the fun. And whilst
the instrument swapping antics on stage do a little to convince, the songs are crying
out for something more shambolic. The music is delightfully twee like some sort of
Concretes/Jens Lekman hybrid, all the same – and there’s a Magnetic Fields’ kind of
haze glossed all over it.
The trombone adds another dimension to the tweeness, and this lot have certainly got
a way with the crescendo – each of the songs build up to a point where the flautist is
piping away at a heartier rate, the guitars are denser, and the vocals are more
impassioned. They bring to mind Aloha rather than Belle and Sebastian when they do
that.
It’s more advisable to buy the record, for now, than see them live. ‘Pictures (Too Big To Fit In A Sight)’ and ‘Let’s Watch The
Sunrise’ are both true saccharine delights.
It’s early days, and they all look so young, but there’s certainly a future ahead for Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck – they just need
to release a bit more, and get the crowd onside.
21/07//08 Original Article Here |
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