Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Whilst the rest of the world rages about the well-oiled pursuit of extravagant happiness and despair, it seems that the Nordic lands are quite happy just to get on with it and play incredibly good music. Not that they care any less what is happening to the world but it just seems they can talk about it and raise awareness anyway they can through their music so much better than most other nations.
From Progressive Rock to Metal, from Pop to Blues, the nations that encompass the term Nordic have so much to offer than yet another band, this time under the banner of that very British musical art form of Mod, The Most is more than welcome and hugely enjoyable at the same time.
Their first full-length album released in 2013, Auto-Destructive Art is a humdinger of a way to get people to notice you properly and away from the sometimes limiting E.P. releases that bands have to put out now to garner any type of support. Frans Perris, Magnus Kollberg, Mats Westin and Inge Johansson play as if all the great heroes of the Swedish past are urging them on, the advice they are shouting from the side lines being heeded and the continued support to open up another genre of music in which to conquer hearts in the land that proudly knows it gave some of the music to the world in which to play. The Most have learned the culture of the Mod phenomenon and give their version of it back with an understandable joy in what they have created. It sounds great, it sounds so good that it also seems to encompass elements of The Rolling Stones tangled up in its face appeal, not a bad thing at all.
Tracks such as I Don’t Want It, I’m Not Your Man, She’s A Sensation and Beat Girl all give the imagery of getting the Lambretta out for another joy ride, of making sure the mirrors are clean at the start and foggy with anticipation and heavy musical breathing at the end and the thought of your finest threads hanging off you as if you had been taken back fifty years to a point where Mod ruled and ruled well.
The Most have the beat, they have the pounding perfect strike that can set a pulse racing into the night without the need for caffeine to play its usual part in the proceedings and above all are a credit to the Mod revival and its glorious past. Auto-Destructive Art at its very 21st century element and showing yet again to the world that Swedish/ Nordic music is amongst some of the finest in the world.
Ian D. Hall