TREEFIGHT FOR SUNLIGHT - Treefight For Sunlight

We also owe a word of thanks to Bella Union if, among the new phenomena to emerge from Scandinavian pop last year, Treefight For Sunlight have become nearly impossible to overlook. Among the new bands of this movement that deserve to claim a "place in the sun", as metaphorically evoked in their name, they are undoubtedly one of them. This picturesque moniker conceals a quartet from Copenhagen, four guys who've known each other since childhood, who dream of the West Coast and love early Genesis.

Perhaps it's this long-standing familiarity with one another that allows the Danes to field no fewer than three singers (out of four members) and deploy such ambitious harmonies and vocal arrangements, following in the footsteps of Beach Boys, Association and the like.

On "Treefight For Sunlight" (originally released by the local label Tambourhinoceros under the title "A Collection Of Vibrations For The Skull") a love of pop triumphs, quite literally, in the dazzling clarity of its ever-shifting colours, in the irrepressible fullness of its movements. These qualities stand out, for instance, when set against the rhythmic acrobatics of "Introducing Palace Players", the choral exoticism of Yeasayer, or the somewhat trendy beach psych-pop of MGMT, any of which might draw in casual listeners from one direction or another. Comparisons that other critics have floated, but which, we fear, risk creating false expectations: in this sense, references to bands like Explorers Club or, if you like, Shout Out Louds, seem more fitting, even if the band doesn't share their tendency to echo other artists so closely.

There's very little attention paid to form, for better or worse, in this band's approach: detractors will probably see them as not "new" enough to be considered original, yet not "polished" enough to be appreciated as traditionalists. The truth that matters to us is that their debut album contains more than one memorable song.

The first mention inevitably goes to the grandiose little march of "What Became Of You And I", by far the most conventional track of the bunch, but the instantly gratifying pull of its chorus and the delightful flourishes of rippling piano demand that we put it front and centre. Then come the math-rock spirals of "Facing The Sun", the dazzling vastness of the ballad "The Universe Is A Woman", and the shimmering prog dreams of "Riddles In Rhymes" and "Rain Air".

"Vibrations for the skull" — no definition could be more fitting: in the music of Treefight For Sunlight, the sensation of "being filled up" is, at times, overwhelming.

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03/02/2011