The Vacuum Dreamers
Go Tell The Bees
Perfect Pop Records

There hasn't been a lot of activity in the Perfect Pop camp the last few years. No releases in 2010, two in 2011 and only one last year. A pleasant surprise then with two new albums almost simultaneously this moonth. Three cheers! Go Tell The Bees is the second album by The Vacuum Dreamers. We missed out on the debut album Don't Fit The Bill last year.

The Dreamers are a quartet that includes former members from other Perfect Pop groups like The Tables, The Blind Bats and Astroburger. They are helped out by a few friends, not least the late Arthur Holøien (of Lonely Crowd and Ljodahått to name but two) who played bass throughout the album and also a bit acoustic guitar. The Dreamers' music is inspired by the swingin' 1960s like most of the PP camp. But whereas the grand majority has flavours of Britannia, the Dreamers seem more oriented towards Americas, not least its West Coast. The sound is dominated by neat and occasionally twangy guitars, Farfisa organ and pure female vocals on most of the songs. The tempo is rather slow and the tunes not as instantly catchy as on your average PP album. Some of them tend towards pure pop, not least the pleasant happy-melancholic "Snap My Heartstrings". Whereas the calmest offerings, "Tick This Box" and "The Transformation", with a little less drums might get close to acid folk. I guess Go Tell The Bees might rank as the most mature sounding album of the entire PP catalogue, though without leanings towards AOR (thank God!). A wise move by Perfect Pop then to make this a vinyl only release. We middle aged tend to prefer it that way. A pleasant album and the eight songs are definitely growers!

Copyright © 2013 JP