Artists

At January 09's Eurosonic festival, Irish Times music guru Jim Carroll reported Marching Band to be his “new fave Swedes”, and being somewhat of an Irish emissary to that area of the world having stumbled upon Lykke Li in a Dutch basement this time last year, a band that sounded like “Fleet Foxes if they’d listened to pop rather than Crosby Stills Nash & Young“ were worth at least a cursory look. And what do you know, their harmonies are perfect, grooves beautiful and songs fantastic.

A two-piece comprising of Erik Sunbring and Jacob Lind that sound a lot fuller than that, like all great modern pop bands, Teenage Fanclub are an obvious reference point for Marching Band. Take their full debut’s first track on ‘For Your Love’, an opener so insanely catchy it proves impossible to listen to Spark Large through without having to return for a second listen. Its chorus just oozes Blake/McGinley/Love goodness and contains the best steel drums of their kind since Super Furry Animals’ Northern Lights. Ditto the instantly humable ’Gorgeous Behavior’ and so on, and so forth.

Released in the US only, Spark Large has already become a favourite of telly execs with songs appearing on the 90210 remake and How I Met Your Mother while the pair also provided an original one for Michael Cera’s latest film Nick and Noras Infinite Playlist. A licensing deal in Europe is imminent according to the band so get ready for your head to fall somewhere over your heels very soon.