Those Dancing Days: ‘In Our Space Hero Suits’

Opening with ‘Knights In Mountain Fox Jackets’, surely the longest title ever attached to Atari fanfare, ‘In Our Space Hero Suits’ starts out as the most surprising album ever by a Swedish girl-band made up of recent school-leavers.

It hardly matters that it gets less surprising as it unfolds – such is the record’s charm that the stream of catchy ditties will likely make the quintet a big hitter regardless. The fast-paced video game shenanigans of ‘Run Run’ and ‘Hitten’ have already begun to sow their seeds with smarter-than-average lyrics set to sing-along choruses.

Whereas there’s plenty of good pop on display, there are only moments of great pop (the drums and harmonising during the bridge of ‘Shuffle’ a particular highpoint). Luckily for Those Dancing Days, they possess a trump card in the form of singer Linnea Jönsson.

Sounding like the lovechild of Pink and ex-Sugababe Siobhan Donaghy, her austere tone neatly offsets the chirpy mania of the music, only slightly losing its cool in the swooning chorus of current single ‘Home Sweet Home’. Her presence adds weight to otherwise breezy melodies, exuding a maturity that belies her age. When her talent is fully utilised, how thrilling Those Dancing Days might turn out to be.

Released on 6th October 2008 by Wichita.

Written by Polis Loizou.