Slim Loris - Love and Fear (Self-Released)

Slim Loris is a pop rock quartet from Stockholm, Sweden, influenced by various landscapes of music in the 60s and 70s from the British Invasion to American folk rock. On their third album, Love and Fear, the same earthy tones and proto-psychedelic harmonies of The Beatles Rubber Soul era and the stadium folk of Fleetwood Mac pervade this album in, thankfully, a way that never sounds like trying to copy or even reinvent. Any hints of their influences that come through are only there because they’ve been listening to them forever and it’s in their blood.

There’s plenty of big production on the record that work magnificently from the horns of “A House Of Our Own” to the superb harmonies of “Sparkling Sun,” but one of the best songs here is the somber “Better Than I.” It’s intimate, raw, and its fingerpicking paired with its shaky, vulnerable vocals make it sound like a lost Big Star track. The band has a remarkable quality of being able to dance from sound to sound and genre to genre without ever coming across as fickle or schizophrenic, and it makes for a highly entertaining and enthralling experience. Love and Fear is set to be released May 19th.