How can you not love a Swedish band that makes sweet, pretty, slightly accented, non-electronic pop music? Unless you're a heartless ogre, it's pretty much impossible.

Musically, The Concretes have an almost alt-country thing going on, although it's weird enough to really be alt-some-other-country (hmm, I guess that makes sense). Mazzy Star comes to mind on a few tracks, but that doesn't really get it... Nor does Belle and Sebastian, although they do share a certain loose, slightly coy, slightly moody folksy feel. The Concretes sound like, well, The Concretes!

Despite a large-ish assortment of players, wielding guitars, bass, drums, balliani, trumpet and harmonica, the songs on Boyoubetterunow are pretty sparse, relying on catchy melodies and inventive orchestration to keep things interesting. For me, though, it's Victoria's vocals that really make this disc stand out. The fact that Victoria (they're all one-namers, apparently) sings with an accent undoubtedly has an effect on my judgment, but I imagine that even if I were a Swedish youth and she were singing in her native language, her mild, half-innocent/half-sultry and undeniably sweet voice would be crush-inducing. And when she briefly breaks into Swedish on "The Thief"... oh geez, that's it.

Reading back over what I've written, I realize that I've made The Concretes sound sort of light-weight. They're not. While the much of the music is somewhat light-hearted, there are complex, dark, wistful currents running through these songs, although they may take a while to surface as at first you'll be distracted by the novelty of what the band is doing. I hadn't listened to this CD for about a week, and when I put it on again this evening I was really surprised at how much of the music had stuck in my head, and how quickly I was drawn back into these songs. The Concretes have created one of the more intriguing CDs I've heard in a long time.