Friska Viljor: Tour De Hearts

When I first hear this record I was immediately struck by the expanse of the sound. Not an epic U2-style expanse, but more a breadth of instrumentation reminiscent of early Arcade Fire and current favourites Broken Records. In short, I was sure there must be at least seven band members. It turns out the band consists of only two guys...

Hailing from Sweden, Friska Viljor were formed when two friends, Daniel and Joakim, both broke up with their girlfriends, got drunk, and wrote some songs. So far, so Bon Iver, but this isn't the kind of record you'd expect to come from two broken-hearted Swedes; it's phenomenally cheerful.

I must come clean and admit that I usually find "cheerful" music to be a little sickly-sweet and lacking in emotional scope, and yes, this LP does occasionally get a little cheesy. Yet thankfully it still manages to retain some bite, and there's certainly some very good songs on display here. On a couple of tracks they dabble with some generic synthesizer action (which sounds hopelessly European) but when they stick to real instruments they make for a highly engaging and satisfying listen.