Those Dancing Days
Daydreams & Nightmares
Release Date: Mar 7, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Pop, New Wave/Post-Punk Revival
Record label: Wichita
Music Critic Score
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Album Review: Daydreams & Nightmares by Those Dancing Days
Fairly Good, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
The all-girl Swedish pop band Those Dancing Days garnered early career buzz with a few sugary-sweet, lo-fi EPs and a shambolically listenable debut, 2008's In Our Space Hero Suits. The band's 2011 sophomore follow-up, Daydreams & Nightmares, while retaining the group's essential Swedish pop knack for endless melodies, is anything but lo-fi. Shedding any misconception that the band lacks chops, Daydreams & Nightmares is a glossy, accomplished '80s-influenced dance-rock and post-punk album that showcases lead vocalist Linea Jonsson's powerful, sexy croon.
Based on rating 3.5/5
When [a]Those Dancing Days[/a] released the delightfully monikered [b]‘Fuckarias’[/b] onto the internet, the whole fey-loving indie world held its breath. Gone were the woozy fairground synths and tinkly guitars. In their place was a teeming electro-waltz of scattershot drumming, feedback wails and Linnea Jonsson’s heady growl. It seemed like the Swedish girl group had grown up.One of the main qualms with the girls’ 2008 debut [b]‘In Our Space Hero Suits’[/b] was that it was all a little, well… drippy.
Based on rating 2/5
Considered dispassionately, the second album from Those Dancing Days more than fulfils the promise of their first singles, released in 2007, when most of them were still at school. Once gauche and shambolic, albeit charming, the Swedish quintet have blossomed into purposeful musicians, whose seemingly straightforward indiepop songs frequently surprise with off-kilter rhythms and unexpected melodies. The trouble is that it's hard to consider Daydreams and Nightmares other than dispassionately.
Based on rating 2.0/5
Swedish indie band Those Dancing Days made a minor splash in 2008 with their debut In Our Space Hero Suits, a jangly, Strokes-esque record filled with fuzzy, condensed pop-rock. Though wonderfully capricious, the album largely overachieved thanks to lead vocalist Linnea Jönsson's smoky croon. One could even make the case that the entire justification for the band's existence is simply to share Jönsson's drowsy but smoldering voice; listening to it elicits a simple but indescribable pleasure.
Opinion: Excellent
Deserves to catapult them into indie pop’s premier league. Jaime Gill 2011 When Sweden’s Those Dancing Days first shimmied across the Northern Sea at the start of 2008, they were chiefly noted for extreme youth (some were still schoolgirls), the alluring voice of Linnea Jönsson, a breathlessly pretty single in Hitten and a sweetly shambling debut album that didn’t quite live up to that song's potential. Given their status as one-hit wonders, taking two-and-a-half years to release a follow-up risked losing the band all momentum (remember Black Kids?).