Audiopile Review: Gothenburg-trio Amateur Hour return with their fourth album, coming after a three-year wait since their sprawling double LP, Krökta Tankar Och Brända Vanor, an album that sideswiped us with a raw whirlwind of industrial aesthetics, rip-it-up-again post-punk attitude and coded dream-pop. The trio, made up of Discreet mainstays Hugo Randulv and Dan Johansson, and led by the haunted vocals of Julia Bjernelind, continue their slide into the more purposeful songwriting that made Krökta standout from their two preceding albums, which were far more obscured in a shroud of hissy FX and improvised jams that were more indicative of the general Gothenburg sound. But it’s that voice of Bjernelind, aching, raw but wholly sweet, like the best of the ‘70s acid folk singers, pushed clearer in the mix and featured on most of the tracks, that makes Går I Kras so endlessly satisfying. Still quite tethered to their hometown, Randulv and Johansson stitch her dissociative vocals and chiming guitars together with scratchy drones, thickened ambient-gaze and no-fi scrawlings, like dream-pop dipped in an acid bath. They continue to be the best thing out of the Swedish underground. Edition of 500.

***

Går I Kras is the fourth album from the Gothenburg-trio Amateur Hour that consists of Hugo Randulv, Julia Bjernelind and Dan Johansson. While in many ways continuing where the massive Krökta Tankar Och Brända Vanor double left off in 2022, the new 11-song album is arguably the most accessible and refined recording yet from the group, with some of their strongest tracks to date. Still blending dreamy lo-fi pop music with electronics and crude sound collages, The Cannanes through a meatgrinder and whatnot, the melodies just lingers in a different way on Går I Kras. The perfect spring soundtrack. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies, comes with a poster with artwork by Simba Sinkkonen. Mastered by Linus at Elementstudion.