Swedish Death Polka
Self Titled (CD EP)
 Ay-yi-yi! Shmat here, looking over this CD he just picked out of his bin of unreviewed material. Yes, you read the band name right: (Swedish) Death Polka. Wow, hold on while the Shmat goes and digs up his cache of lutefisk. Maybe by confronting the issue of bad names head on with that humdinger, this French-Canadian duo is attempting to say "don't judge us by the cover". Indeedy! The Shmat is not sure if there is any polka in this at all, though he is certainly no expert in that type of music. Strange, twitchy electronics flit in and out of minimalistic soundscapes, while creepy vocals are introduced subtly into the mix. The overly distorted "Clandestine Valentine" nearly blew the Shmat's speakers. "Death of a Child" seems to have SOME sort of neo-polka influence buried under a mishmash of vocal lines like "God didn't make me cause he's mad / he didn't send me to make you sad".
The eerie, baroque cellos and seashore noises of "Sad Elegant Eel" are interesting enough. "Looking Up At A Wall" sounds like more of a traditional 4 tracker folk song to the Shmat. "Before We Die" starts off like the Polyphonic Spree compressed into a tiny AM radio. "Judith Christ" is as mopey and slow as a Leonard Cohen song and proved to be The Shmat's favorite off the album. Hmm.. he could certainly dig many of these tunes for their experimentalism, but there is a sort of danger in presenting the audience with such a wide variety of things to swallow. But that's a risk that Swedish Death Polka seems willing to take and so the Shmat will say to them: good luck and long live the destruction of genres.
- review by SHMAT (1.15.05)
Swedish Death Polka
swedishdeathpolka@yahoo.com
www.swedishdeathpolka.com
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