Slim Loris

Future Echoes and Past Replays is a brilliantly wordy, yet entirely literal title for the Swedish band’s second album. Each song addresses a feeling or melancholic episode within the life of Mattias Cederstam and all are set to folky plucking and soft simple dynamics that are upbeat but never hoedown upbeat.

There is no ambiguity about the lyrics either. Often Cedrstam is discussing about heartache and difficult choice, so you don’t have to process the deepest recesses of your mind in order to decipher the message. In this way, the album has those prototypical pop ethics that make it so approachable and marketable.

Being highly motivated by the aspects of music that make it so mainstream, it’s also noticeable that Slim Loris try wherever they can to differentiate this offering from the releases of bands that they may sound so similar to, like Mumford & Sons. Both bands have similar production values in that they produce crisp notes and catchy riffs, but Future Echoes and Past Replays is far less convoluted in terms of instrumentation – possibly linking the record closer to the origins of folk - and Slim Loris are also more inclined to experiment with varying time signatures and their own techniques of arrangement.