Libido
Supersonic Daydream
Fire Records

Having received some good press in England, Libido was hailed by Norwegian journalists as the next big thing that had already happened over there. Well, I can't spot them anywhere on the NME charts this week. This single shows a competent britpop guitar band, but are they able to compete with the British on their home ground? Maybe, but not likely with the same success as Norway's football team. Supersonic Daydream has some XTC-like bends, but other than that little to make it rise above the average. The English have compared Libido to bands like Radiohead, Verve and Nirvana, and Inner Beauty Is A Lame Comfort When You're Fuck Bored is certainly very Nirvana-like. Somehow, though, it doesn't come across as quite the real thing, but this can of course be said about anything inspired by Nirvana. Next is Television Divine, a low-down distorted white-man's blues song, where they have nicked the organ part from the Bad Seeds (Nick Cave). Unfortunately this is the only thing that makes the song memorable. Annies' Song is a slower ballad with a nice enough melody, but here the vocalist sounds almost like Bono! All in all, a rather schizophrenic collection of songs that sound too derived and too calculated to suggest that Libido is a band with a fully developed identity. You might want to check out their album (Killing Some Dead Time), though, and see if it proves the opposite.

Copyright © 1998 Knut Tore Breivik