One could accuse Sweden’s MILLENCOLIN of trying to sell coals to Newcastle. In a world overflowing with American bands like Green Day, Blink 182, Sum 41, Good Charlotte and the glaringly abysmal My Chemical Romance, is yet another highly charged singles oriented sk8terpunk rock band strictly necessary or even desired, particularly one based in Scandinavia but so obviously in thrall with Stateside noiseniks?
In their favour the Swedish four-piece have been knocking out this stuff for a while and ‘Kingwood’ represents their sixth long-playing collection of sub 3 minute melodic punk rock numbers. Purposeful, single-minded and direct MILLENCOLIN blaze through ‘Kingwood’ as if their meatballs and saunas depended on it.
However, they’re so intent on driving their punk rock juggernaut through these twelve tracks that MILLENCOLIN allow no breathing space for an acoustic interlude or recording time for a lovelorn string-laden ballad to give pause in the break-neck pace. On one level the avoidance of these hackneyed musical sideshows is welcome but over the course of a whole album the inevitable consequence of such unflinching muscular riffing is to render the undertaking one-dimensional and repetitive. There’s a growing belief that the law of diminishing returns has been invoked as each blistering song crashes and burns in the eardrums only to be replaced by yet another rousing blast. Mind you they did release an album a few years back called ‘Same Old Tunes’.
I can also hear The Foo Fighters and QOTSA and earlier pioneers like The Damned and The Clash informing the MILLENCOLIN sound but whereas those bands provide(d) contrast and variation within their musical blueprints MILLENCOLIN stick rigidly to the fast-lane approach; and let’s face it punk rock distilled to just a rush of blood does not allow much room for emotional manoeuvring or for subtle inflections within the relentless tone and tempo. Despite the balls to the wall delivery the oddly safe and soulless production contributes to the monotonous effect, cocooning these songs in a bland audio world where sharp edges and irregular fault lines are ironed out to make a monotonous flat musical plain or, if you like, the jagged and undulating lines of a fjord are engineered into a straight and level canal.
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‘Kingwood’ would have benefited from a greater use of a ‘live’ warts and all approach or by puncturing its smooth surface with stark notes of dischord and abstractness. For example, ‘Shut You Out’ is a track that works well within the confines of the slick production as it’s a song suffused with layered vocal harmony and guitar melody but the urgent directness of the preceding Ash meets The Clash track ‘Cash or Clash’ is crying out for a shredded and exposed sound, released onto the ears without the safety net of an elaborate mixing desk.
Still, as Swedish practitioners of this most American of genres MILLENCOLIN are well equipped with tuneful songs and the requisite skills to play them with passion and punch. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have used ‘Kingwood’ to expose their obvious attributes in a rawer setting or to throw a curveball into the riotous mix by revealing a hitherto unknown appreciation for, say, the electronic jazz of fellow countrymen Koop.
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