Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers has a famous scene in which one sister says to another, against the backdrop of a dying sister's moans, "I hate you, and I've always hated you". It should come as little surprise that the Swedish director had been consumed with the demos of a ten year old boy named Morrissey at the time he wrote the script. Bergman, despite his over-the-top tendencies, has been repeatedly portrayed as a realist by mainstream media, who seem to think truths go hand in hand with swirls of self-pity; conversely, look up the phrase "Swedish band" in a critic's dictionary, and you find the phrase "fluffy pastry pop". Reviewers would have you believe that if you squeeze a CD by a cute band like Waltz for Debbie, it will giggle.

While the band's music comes across like the perfect soundtrack for all those movie moments when Eric Stoltz gives a drummer girl earrings, Waltz for Debbie are not fluff. They're not even about the operatic highs we receive from a first kiss or a final farewell. Believe it or not, the duo of Martin Permer and Annica Lundback are realists. While their unsparing directness ("I am making up my life with lies, trying to pretend you want me here/I know you don't") bears a whiff of Bergmanesque camp, their dramas cry less and contain far more of-the-moment observations ("Nice apartment, I said to myself/Lucky guy, obviously"). They're a band that's easy to relate to, whether the topic is departures ("Why does she leave the night to the moon? Please don't tell me, that's her secret") or unhealthily balanced relationships ("He tells me I'm everything/And I tell him, 'Okay'"). I am flat-out enamored with their lyrics, and the way that each scene plays against melodies that acknowledge and highlight the exhilaration of simple human feelings. Though some might argue that music built around aching hearts should not make you want to dance on air, I realize that the problem is not with this Swedish pop, but with anyone who thinks there's ever a bad time for dancing.