TEAM LAST CALL

IKEA. ABBA. Fish. Meatballs. Sweden, you just give and give.

From The Cardigans to The Sounds to Refused to Peter Bjorn And John, Swedish musical exports have almost always been worth taking a chk-a-chance on (Ace of Base notwithstanding). That list expands in 2009 with the release of the self-titled EP from Love In October, a Chicago band led by brothers and Swedish expatriates Erik and Kent Widman.

Stuck somewhere in the quirk-rock spectrum between Dinosaur Jr. and Modest Mouse, the band flip-flops between blissfully fuzzed-out rockers and mellow dance tunes, anxious yelps and hushed croons, biting off Built to Spill’s manic guitar heroics one minute and the Get-Up Kids’ keys-accented power pop the next. (GUK drummer Rob Pope co-produced the band’s 2008 full-length.) Depending on the song, Love In October’s music comes across as either playfully dramatic or dramatically playful; either way, it’s Swedish through and through.

“I would say 75 percent of our sound comes from Swedish influences,” says Erik, the band’s singer, guitarist and pianist, who emigrated from Sweden to Michigan in 2000 for college. “I also had the privilege to have a really good music teacher who taught me a lot of Swedish folk music theory. Now I’m trying to take what I learned a long time ago and recall that, but then put it into a rock and roll context.”

The Love In October EP (released May 26) is the band’s third release since the brothers Widman reunited in Minneapolis in 2006. It’s the first, however, since the band stumbled upon its current sound. Previous records were more pedestrian in their approach, with a more obvious, swing-for-the-fences appeal that earned LiO dubious comparisons to Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and bands of that ilk.

“I don’t even know why we were doing it,” Erik shrugs. “We didn’t enjoy listening to our own music, so it was kind of like, ‘What the fuck are we doing? Let’s actually write something that A) we want to play, and B) we want to listen to.’ I think we kind of found our own path to go down.”

The move towards a more natural and raw sound has benefited Love In October in more ways than one. Aside from churning out a praiseworthy EP that nestles nicely on your iPod between Lou Reed and Lovedrug, the band has made major strides into the mainstream market with the placement of its song “Like Nothing Ever Happened” in national TV and radio advertisements for Shoe Carnival. With one catchy, quirky pop song, Love In October has more or less eliminated the necessity for the record deal it was chasing so earnestly in its first few years. The irony is almost too big to swallow.

“Now we write music to please ourselves,” Erik says, “and if anybody likes it, that’s good.”

Try less, get more. Sweden, I don’t know how you do it.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine