Last year I was fortunate enough to hear the CD reissue of Agony Street’s 1993 second album, ‘Songs For William’, which was recorded by just two people, multi-instrumentalist Klas Qvist playing most of the instruments and harmonizing together with his Agony Street co-founder, vocalist, producer Gudmundur Bragason. In July 2021 they were working on songs which were destined for the next album, when Klas Qvist contracted blood poisoning (sepsis) and died suddenly. Fast forward to February 3rd, 2023, and Gudmundur has released the third and final album featuring the two of them.

This album finds them with a more expressive sense of humour (the title cut is a delight), and finds them moving more into the Sixties while never losing their ELO stylings. This is a psychedelic pop masterpiece which is a delight from beginning to end, an album which needs to be heard more widely as this will be appreciated by a great many, but of course it could never be performed live with just the two of them and with the death of Klas that could never happen now anyway. The humour permeates the music as well as the lyrics, but it is engaging as opposed to twee, so one can listen to this multiple times without it ever wearing thin, while their understanding of British pop sensibilities is superb. It never sounds like a Swedish album recorded in the 2020’s, but instead is linked strongly to the heritage of the likes of The Kinks, Small Faces, Hollies and so many more. A British pop album from Sweden which is worthy of investigation as this is great.

Rating: 8/10