Like most things in life, it started in a pub. There were two boys looking for a girl. No. Not like that. They were looking for a girl who could play darts as well as she could sing. A tall order at the best of times, but two boys with their heads in early 90s pop while their desires were fixed somewhere near the Good Mixer in Camden. 

Many candidates were quizzed and challenged. Many failed. Until the arrival of one Felicia Morfelt, who knocked it out the proverbial park, finishing with a flourish of 180, plus an acappella rendition of ‘Song To The Siren’. They celebrated with a sauna. Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?

The three people, Felicia, John Andersson and Jonas Edquist decided to repair to a studio, where they set about writing the kind of songs that floated their boats, elevated their dreams and launched a thousand smiles. My word, did they succeed. 

These circumstances may well account for the sounds you will hear on this ghostly musical parchment (and there’s even ABBA’s Minimoog making an appearance here). It doesn’t get more glacially Swedish than that. This is, after all, the country that produced everything from the astonishing jazzy pop of Doris, Ralph Lundsten & The Andromeda All-Stars’ freaky disco and the endlessly lovelorn hooks of the Cardigans. Yes, that country.

At heart this is an Anglophile album, which has deftly channeled the pop of the 1980s and early 1990s, from St Etienne’s pop sensibility, the guitar jangle of Lee Mavers and Johnny Marr,  the atmosphere of the Cocteau Twins curious world, the mournful delights of Talk Talk, the baroque attack of the Sundays and, digging even further back, ’60s girl groups and Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound (without the firearms, obviously). 

Utilising many of the tools that gave the 1990s and ’80s such a specific sound, like the Fender Jazzmaster, weapon of choice for everyone from the aforementioned Mr. Marr to The Cure’s Robert Smith, alongside the iconic Rhodes piano, used widely, from Ray Manzarek whose use defined the sound of the Doors to Steely Dan and Billy Preston. 

It’s a paean to pop in all its twisted and delightful forms, a historic sweep across decades, genres and worrying hairstyles. An absolute bomb, but with an ever-so gentle explosion, from an age free of influencers and social media, an innocent age, where the craft of songwriting still felt cherished and appreciated. 

The delight of this album is that it wears it’s influences lightly on its sleeve without ever losing sight of the unique sound they have created here, with its paisley melodies and ’shroom chord progressions, it still sounds like The Parade.