Friday 2 November 2007

Tigerbombs - Things That Go Boom

When you think of music from Finland you probably think of some heavy metal band. This is exactly what Kido Retro, and Pepe Trouble are not up to. They are the duo that calls themselves Tigerbombs formed in 2001. Comparing their music to other artists seems more or less like a hard piece of work. They are probably what should be called “alternative”. On their 2007 release “Things That Go Boom” they use guitars, bass guitars, a lot of percussions as well as some heavy use of organs and TOYS (that’s were the weird electronic sounds come from).
Kido’s voice has a special touch to it, hard to described, it’s a bit higher than most male singers voices, at times it will go out of tune, which is not a problems, because if it wasn’t out of tune it would not sound as much fun. It is a voice that easily grows on you. Some of the songs have the power to make you want to dance, others just make you want to sit down and think about the sadder things in life. Generally the whole album seems happy, some songs feature the sadder aspects of our lives. “School Of Love” is about a person does not “seem to get all straight As” and is “going to fail anyways”. The music is rather joyful for what the lyrics are about being bad at love.
In an overall view (or listen) is a joyful album, there are some sadder songs in there, but something sad would not be colored in ORANGE, would it? The front cover is also proof for it not being all that depressive, on it you find a sketch of a couple making out … When you do open it (the booklet) the first thing that you will come across is a message of appreciation from the band to the listener/buyer. Even if you would not like the music, which is doubtful, you would definitely enjoy the album art, thanks to the drawing skills of the Swedish singer Paola. Paola is not only the artist for the album art. She is also featured in two of the songs, and is doing background vocals for three.
The Finnish accent of Kido adds to the charm of this album, the opening track “Shaking The Tree” can leave you wondering for ages what exactly he is singing about. It is an amazing song thanks to it oh so different sound. It even sounds amazing without having a clue what it actually is about. “Shaking The Tree” is probably the best track, but the other songs can definitely keep up with it, and maybe there might be better ones. Placing an amazing song at the beginning of the record is always a good choice. But what makes it such a good song? For one it has a great sound to it, the music sounds great it has some crazy 70s tune to it, which still fits our age perfectly well.
But beware if you blast your stereo too hard, you might blow your ears on the song “Out Of Tune” cause things start getting out of tune in that one as the title suggests. Treat your ears to something new!

Review by Solveig Werner

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