Josie

This one has been bubbling up for the last few months, littering the site with singles that are brief, but incredibly infectious, lighting up the indie pop radar like a handful of sparklers on a summer night. The Danish group caught my ear this summer with a 7” on Precious Recordings of London that sugared up the blood with the same energy as ‘90s pop confections like Tiger Trap, Talulah Gosh, or The Vaselines. In that vein, the band bashes out breathless hooks with a crash and tumble, the kind that threaten to trip them up as they sprint through their paces, but they hang on loosely with a positive pounce that delivers a bit of sun in a dour year.

Some of the best indie pop forgoes meticulous studio construction in favor of the bounce of pop’s beautiful recklessness. Josie pick up the yoke from a long line of luminaries and hold it well. The band taps into immediacy, making each song feel like it tears open the tie downs, escalating into cascades of strums, a clatter of drums, and joyfully tossed choruses that just as often resolve into gleeful yelps as they do tender sighs. There are records that are soaked and saturated in joy, the kind that glow from behind the speaker grids, and A Life On Sweets Alone is just that kind of record. When darkness calls, the record is a beacon of bluster-bred positivity. It’s dark out there, take all the brief candles you can get.

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