Casablanca - Beast Of Summer

"If you don't get it, we'll show you how"

I've been sitting on this track (not literally, though that would be... interesting) for awhile now. Casablanca are a Swedish rock/hair-metal supergroup, including members from Melody Club, Sahara Hotnights and Alice Cooper, among others. That's pretty impressive on its own. The fact that the band has released an awesome throwback album is just icing on the cake. Beast Of Summer is one of the best tracks, and absolutely screams backyard bbq or top-down convertible driving (if I had a convertible). I love big, anthemic cheese like this. Nobody does "it's Summertime!" songs better than the Swedes. It's undoubtedly because their winters are so long and dark. But take it from someone who's visited several times: there's nothing more beautiful that a Stockholm Summer.



(Music posted for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear, support the artists. Buy the album here. Follow me on twitter and facebook.

Casablanca (ft. Malena Ernman) - La Voix

"I'm forever yours"

This will probably be my last Melodifestivalen-related post of the year, and it's fitting to send 2010's competition off with a rendition of last year's winner. Casablanca and Malena Ernman brought the house down last Saturday when they performed this duet version of La Voix. "Popera" turned into hair metal shouldn't work, but everything connects here. Having Malena join in at the end is icing on the cake. I'm already a big fan of Casablanca (mostly because they're composed of members of Melody Club and Sahara Hotnights, but for musical reasons, too), though I was kind of apprehensive about their sound melding with opera. They've converted the chorus to English but don't change a whole lot else melodically. And as an added bonus, lead singer Anders Ljung can perform. By the way, Casablanca's debut album comes out next month, or so I hear.

Casablanca (ft. Malena Ernman) - La Voix  by  alienhits

(Music posted for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear, support the artists. Listen to more Casablanca here. Follow me on twitter and facebook.

Casablanca - Downtown

"We've got one chance left to turn it all around"

Imagine my delight when discovering that two fifths of this new Swedish supergroup are Erik Stenemo (from Melody Club) and Josephine Forsman (from Sahara Hotnights). That alone caught my attention and guaranteed that I was going to sit up and take Casablanca seriously. The band hearkens back to the over-the-top hair metal of the 80's and is very authentic in that. They really go for the lighters-in-the-air anthem template with Downtown, a song that sounds a little like The Ark in parts--the dramatic, slowed down chorus, especially. Frontman Anders Ljung is no Ola Salo, but his throaty, at times sleazy, vocals fit the KISS-style aesthetic perfectly. This genre trends toward self-parody almost instinctively, but something about this band (and Swedish music in general), manages to harness the genre's tropes and turn something that could be cheesy into something quite rousing. And with support from Swedish radio (this song debuted on the annual P3 Guld awards), they could turn out to be what we thought H.E.A.T. was last year.

Casablanca - Downtown by alienhits

(Music posted for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear, support the artists. Buy the single here. Follow me on twitter and facebook.