Thirdimension
- Permanent Holiday
Thirdimension
crank up the swoon and the swagger on their second Hidden
Agenda release, Permanent Holiday,
the follow-up
to their debut album Protect Us From What We Want (released
in Sweden in 1998 and in the U.S. in 2002), a critically acclaimed
collection of glossy Brit-Pop epics, rowdy garage-rock odes,
ethereal electro hymns, and larger-than-life guitar anthems,
rendered with fervent devotion. In unanimously positive response
to their debut reviewers dropped names like The Beatles, Blur,
Super
Furry Animals, Doves, The Byrds, The Who, The Kinks and
fellow Swedes The
Soundtrack of Our Lives.
The 11 songs that
comprise Thirdimension's new album are of
a shimmering, melodic, and willfully grandiose stripe of classic
rock-n-roll. Mellifluous orchestral maneuvers, swaggering proto-pop,
nimble prog fancy, and Volvonic garage rock. Grounded in sensual
neo-psychedelia but evoking much more, Thirdimension translate
traditional late sixties British Invasion artists like The
Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, and The Small Faces, for a not
so brave new world. Like their debut , Permanent Holiday was
recorded and produced by Thirdimension and Christoffer Lundquist
at The Aerosol Grey Machine. The album features a special transatlantic-vocal
guest star spot by Caroline Schutz (vocalist for Hidden Agenda
labelmates Folksongs
For The Afterlife) on "The Only Healer",
a spine-tingling duet. Guests also include David Gould (Folksongs
For The Afterlife/The
Bootleg Remedy) and Karin Torbjörnsdottir.
DIMENSIONAL H-FI: As far as songwriting
and lyrics go, vocalist Björn Stegmann is
The Man. Stegmann's also been known to engage in programming
when
the
need arises
for some futurismo. Markus Slivka is the guitar-pyrotechnician
and multi-instrumental dimensioneer, adding keys, pianos and
whatnot to Permanent Holiday, as well as composer
for the band art/image. Martin Rosengren,
the fairly new bassist, and the
other Björn, drummer Björn Wickenberg are
Thirdimension's backbone, rhythm section extraordinaire. Both,
along with Slivka,
contribute
big bold background-vocals. Not that they tend to go all Beach
Boys on you, but the harmonies, from subliminal to grandiose,
are a trademark of the band.
***
LATEST REVIEWS for Permanent Holiday:
ALL_
MUSIC_GUIDE: "If the Soundtrack of Our Lives
owe much of their sound to Pink
Floyd and the
Rolling Stones; the Dipsomaniacs to the Kinks and the Creation;
Motorpsycho to the Who and the early Soft Machine, and Sigur
Ros to whale songs and solo Robert Wyatt, then Sweden's Thirdimension
owes a debt to — well, actually, all of them, to some
extent. Which, counterintuitively, makes Thirdimension a
lot harder to categorize than any of those other bands, and
makes
their second album so much fun to listen to" [link
to full review]
AVERSIONLINE: "Their
style is definitely a modernized take on some of that stuff,
and I could possibly compare them to
a few bigger name contemporary acts like Coldplay and Interpol
on some level (or Porcupine Tree from a completely different
side of the coin – see "Sore Lips" especially),
but again these are only loose reference points...I have to
say, there's no legitimate reason why this band isn't far more "popular" than
they are. This material is equally as strong, if not stronger,
than a lot of comparable music that's been hitting the streets
in the US via major labels in the last few years. I have no
real concern for that kind of thing, and I'm not sure these
guys do either, but I truly believe that all it would take
is one small stroke of luck for Thirdimension to break wide
open. This is great work, definitely something worth looking
into." [link
to full review]
TEACHING_THE_INDIE_KIDS_TO_DANCE: "Thirdimension
fit in perfectly with the newest wave of psychedelia influenced
Scandanavian music...alongside
Soundtrack of Our Lives and current Peefork darlings Dungen." [link
to full review]
U_SOUNDS: "This
is big, bold, authentic Rock n Roll in the spirit of The
Who, The Kinks, etc. but with a level of epic complexity
which has escaped many of their peers." [link
to full review]
COWBOY_TRANCE_ORCHESTRA: "A
wall-to-wall delight of gorgeous alt-pop and rock gems, with
fleeting
hints of Echo and the Bunnymen, Wire, and Blur.
Its warmth takes
no
getting used
to;
it’s
instantly accessible and you’ll be singing along by the second listen." [link
to full review] ***
CRITICAL PRAISE for Thirdimension's 2002 U.S. debut Protect
Us From What We Want:
ENTERTAINMENT_WEEKLY: "The
foursome's
sound may point to fellow countrymen the Soundtrack
of Our Lives, but Thirdimension have a hard-to-miss,
era-spanning U.K. influence, with nods to melody-minded
'60s stalwarts
like the Kinks and modern Brit-Poppers Blur and
Oasis."
BOSTON_GLOBE: "The
album mines and updates classic '60s pop references
and swings easily from dynamic guitar blasts to
moody introspection"
HIGH_BIAS: "It's
hard to imagine that Protect Us From What We Want
is a debut record; it sounds too confident and
assured to be a beginning,
and it makes one yearn to hear how Thirdimension
has
progressed."
UNDER_THE_RADAR: "Sweden
will continue to export quality bands, but it's
unlikely any of them will produce such a genre-crossing,
well-crafted
debut."
POP_MATTERS: "Colossal,
towering pop songs-the kind with violins and cellos…the
sorts of impossibly grand song constructions that
went of fashion in the late '60s."
SKYSCRAPER: “Are the best
Brit bands not British any more? Thirdimension
mine the
spectrum of possibilities, updating Nuggets-style
psych and the
quirky pop of the Television Personalities or Soft
Boys for the new
century”
EXCLAIM: “Thirdimension channel the classic
rock spirits of the Who and the Beatles to make a timeless
record… by opening up to their influences
Thirdimension have made a masterful debut album.”
    
Hey Gringo, visit the band's official website: THIRDIMENSION
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