Park Hotell is an Indie Pop band from Luleå, Sweden where they have strived to stay above water, even with nowhere record deals weighing them down and the business end of the music game tossing a monkey wrench in the works. According to them, If your getting beat up anyway, you might as well do something worthwhile in between the punches. The bands latest release, Layers, is something worthwhile.

I was in a bit of a rush today to get to work and threw Layers on my ipod for the twenty minute ride to work. I wasn’t going to listen to all of it, obviously, but I was going to listen to some of it. Not knowing what to expect I threw my expectations in the backseat and drove. As I left my driveway track one, Dead Ringers, kicked in and I felt pretty good about it, it being early morning and the sound of the band being an upstart fast paced pop tune. That’ll wake you up in the morning. When lead singer Christian Ramirez began to sing there was a definite Morrissey vibe going on (Smiths era Morrissey anyway), and being a fan of old Moz I began to really listen.

More then halfway to my destination I found myself feeling okay with being stuck at a red light as the music continued on. Having grown up in the 80’s I caught the back end of a really great movement in music history with bands like New Order, The Smiths, The Sundays, and so on. What I really liked about Park Hotell is that the band manages to capture the feel of that era and incorporate varying samples of said bands sounds while still maintaining identity. It was like getting a brand new Smiths album or a New Order album or even a reformed Sundays album complete with a male lead singer (though if that were the case it couldn’t be The Sundays without Harriet Wheeler). Whatever it was I was stuck on it. So much so that I pulled into the parking lot of my job and sat there an extra fifteen minutes just listening to the album. It truly is something special that fans of the 80’s will enjoy and still find current in today’s music movement. Well worth handing over your hard earned dollars to own. Enjoy.