Traste & Superstararna
Du din Jävla Sopa (2007)
Brian Shultz
Make no mistake: Traste & Superstararna are not a duo. They're a Swedish band--with like six or seven members, actually--singing in their native tongue practical musical odes to '77, with lots of clear love for the power-pop and punk acts of the era.
Du din Jävla Sopa reeks of influence from classics like Buzzcocks, early Clash and Richard Hell, and they even managed to capture a similar recording feel (think the Exploding Hearts' brilliant Guitar Romantic, though obviously not executed quite as well). It allows taut cuts like "9:23" (actually 2:24 long), with its upbeat handclaps and loose, lightly snotty vocal delivery, to be enjoyably jangly and authentic-feeling, even though it's hard to ever figure out what T&S are singing about.
"Nästan Söndag" gets down with Little Richard-style piano twitches (as low in the mix as they are), with some "shooby doo-bop, bop doo bop"s to boot. It's one of the more engaging moments of the record, as by that point things have started to blend a little too smoothly. Soon, though, the near four-minute "Rälsbussen" comes in, and it's scary just how much frontman Traste Lindén sounds like a young Joe Strummer on this one.
Released way back in 2007, Du din Jävla Sopa may not have been a genuine diamond in the rough, but for fans of the style it definitely seemed to be overlooked just a bit. A lively, energetic throwback take on a worn style.