Nude Magazine Album Reviews Mockingbird Wish Me Luck Days Come And Go

Published on 1st April 2008 (UK)

Media title : Nude Magazine

Author : Emmanuelle Smith

This Swedish, eight-piece orchestral pop band’s first release, at nine songs, is short, sweet and apparently perfectly formed. Flutes, trumpets, and trombones feature alongside bass, percussion and guitar. And along with the somewhat whimsical vocals, this leaves Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck open to comparisons to Belle and Sebastian. It sounds good, and on occasions, very good. ‘Pictures (Too Big To Fit in A Sight)’ is a catchy, poppy break-up tune and perhaps the most memorable on the album. ‘Summer Again’ is a trip back to childhood’s music boxes and fairgrounds, and though a little long, is a wellchosen closing track. However, it’s perhaps all a little too perfect, a little too twee, and a little too thought-out and referential. Yes, this band clearly has impeccable taste in music, and books (being named after a Bukowski collection). But one gets the impression they’re so caught up in their influences that they’ve failed to create anything original – something which I can’t help feeling they’d actually be good at.