If there is one thing you can’t accuse Danish trio SMALL of, it’s being overly dynamic in their songwriting and expression. However, just before you reach the point when you out of sheer desperation want to scream “Give me a bridge, a solo, ANYTHING!”, you will get drawn in by the hypnotizing, trancelike musical stalemate.

Founded in 2006 by Andreas Asingh, Rune Kielsgaard and Jacob Funch, SMALL released the EP ‘Someone’ last year which set expectations to this full length debut quite high. Expectations that are wholly met with this collection of excellent electropop songs.

‘Teenage Cover’ is dirty, pretty, minimalistic and pompous at the same time, often striking the same melancholic nerve as Danish alt-rock greats Mew (‘Mission To The Moon’ could have been Mew without their trademark equilibristic drumming) as well as giving props to Danish 1980s art-electro-pop legends Kliché (SMALLs lyrics are actually CO-written by former Kliché member, Johnny Voss).

At first ‘Teenage Cover’ can feel almost too homogeneous, but repeated spins reveals layers of details and by combining catchy pop and introvert shoegazing with four of the Neon-decade’s most significant musical traits – analogue bleep-synths, heavily distorted, very metallic sounding guitars, falsetto vocals and excessive use of reverb, chorus and other effects – SMALL have created something if not entirely new, then entirely theirs.

Genre: Electropop
Who: Small
Title: Teenage Cover
Label: Homeland Tunes/A:larm Music
Year: 2008
Country: Denmark
Language: English
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Recommended tracks:
Sunshine Lover – Comic Girl – Holy Cow – Blueberry Boy