Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Danish sextet Asteroids Galaxy Tour sound like they are over the top on Fruit, their debut release, due next month. They describe their music as 'pop technicolour' and indeed, they do present a mixture of pop, psychedelia, dance and funk.

They have been providing support roles for quite some time in their native country but when they tried their luck in London, they immediately struck a deal after a demo found its way to the offices of David Enthoven and Tim Clark who managed T. Rex, Roxy Music and Robbie Williams in the past. I was not at all surprised that they liked Asteroids Galaxy Tour, as they essentially embrace glam rock and pop. They would have easily have gone down well in the 1970s but these are different times. There is no doubt that this band are influenced by this glam rock era and such an attitude conforms to the awareness of 70s pop sounds we have seen in the likes of Scissors Sisters and a few other acts.

The downside on Fruit is that there are quite a lot of loose ends. Asteroid Galaxy Tour do manage to fuse their influence and they also do make a bold attempt to sound as original as possible. The grandiose sound of Push The Envelope is something that David Bowie would probably love. It is melodramatic, full of tension and Mette Lindberg’s voice is just about right, as unfortunately, her voice, a cross between Cyndi Lauper and Nena Persson, gets too shrilly for one’s liking. With more modulation she and her band can go places. There are instances such as on The Golden Age, a decent shuffling pop song, where her voice is just about right. On Around The Bend, another stinging number, she seems to be in full command of her delivery. And she is really at her Fruit exhibits a sense of adventure and a feeling of freedom that reflects their environs, --the band had been living for sometime in Christiana, the ultra-liberal district of Copenhagen. The opening song Lady Jesus which revolves around a building used by anarchists and which was eventually pulled down amid violent protests is a keen observation about non-conformists. However, Mette’s vocal delivery is also un-comforming here.

I believe that this band can go places if they can brush up their act. They have got more than decent exposure from the likes of BBC Radio One’s Jo Whiley and Sara Cox, Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary, Jonathan Ross and Radcliffe and Maconie have also plugged them considerably lately. What matters most now is that the band moves away from this self-made production and into something more coherent.