Stockholm is a truly lovely place. Beautiful buildings lie dotted around about a thousand islands, so you’re never far from a bit of waterfront from which you can survey the city’s glacial beauty.

Snowy Stockholm

And glacial it is, because it’s usually fucking freezing. And between October and April, dark. Still, it gives those charming people time to hole up in front rooms, bars, cellars, and anywhere else where you can play guitar and drums and keyboards and sing your hearts out. Plus, there’s a decent welfare system which allows you to drop out of work for a while to persue your life’s dream. Which is presumably why Stockholm, and Scandinavia in general, is home to so many great bands.

She's Got A Beard!

Now, I’m not sure if Stockholm band Mixtapes and Cellmates are great at the moment, but on the basis of new single “Soon”, they’ve certainly got a chance. A fraught slice of angsty rock, it reminds me of that superb song by Rilo Kiley¹:

You’ve got to love any song that does that weird pause thing – which I have been racking my brain for hours now to remember the proper name for it. “Portions For Foxes” does it. This song does it. You know, when a song goes dur-dur-dur-pause-DUR! Anyone? Anyhow, I really rather like this. It’s something of an earworm. The new album “Rox” is out on October 28th and you can pre-order here. I suggest you do.

MP3: Soon by Mixtapes and Cellmates

¹ Which I’m not posting the mp3 for, because I’m going to do it when I get to the Pitchfork 500 missing list for that year. And yes, that’s not the proper video, but you can think the British Music Industry for not wanting me to post a video. A frickin’ video, I ask you.

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