After a couple of home-recorded EPs introduced the indie pop world to Sweden's latest contender,
Nora Karlsson, aka
Boys,
Rest in Peace makes good on the promise those records exhibited and then some. Working for the first time in a studio, and with her
HOLY bandmate
Hannes Ferm helping out on production and drums,
Karlsson expands her sweet-and-true bedroom sound into something more expansive and impressively emotional. Adding synths and synth pop influences to her previously straightforward indie pop is the first step; giving the songs full arrangements is another. She and
Ferm manage to get a sound that's both bedroom intimate and chamber pop full, adding plenty of space and reverb and letting the songs unspool in their own time, while keeping
Karlsson's tender vocals right in the center where they should be. Balancing girl-group-in-space tracks like "Hemtjaensten" with fragile pop songs like "End of Time" and uptempo jangle pop gems like "Love Isn't on My Mind," there is a great deal of variety even within the narrow sonic realm where
Boys operates. She proves to be skilled at cinematic ballads ("That Weekend"), chilly synth pop ("Silly"), and psychedelic folk-pop ("What If You Would Die"), and comes up with a brilliant pop song ("Rabbits") that sounds like
Camera Obscura in a wind tunnel and builds to a resounding crescendo that is breathtaking. Here and throughout the record,
Karlsson's vocals have real emotional power, while never getting out in front of the melody or arrangements. It's a very well-crafted record that sounds like it was made on a shoestring budget, but with loads of skill. If
Karlsson had continued making the kind of homey, low-key EPs she started making when she launched
Boys, she'd be an artist worth keeping tabs on. With
Rest in Peace, she's instantly become an artist making music that is vital and indispensable to any fan of noisy, heartfelt, and original indie pop. ~ Tim Sendra
