The Perishers - Let There Be Morning

Picture a woman. She’s in her late twenties, dressed in white cashmere. She’s making her evening commute in the back of a packed bus looking out at the falling snow. Her expression is a little sad, a little dreamy. Things aren’t terrible, her problems aren’t that serious, but she’s a little bummed none-the-less. If a record was playing over this scene, it would be the Perisher’s Let There Be Morning. The second record from the Swedish foursome sounds like a distant cousin of Keane and Coldplay because of its heavy piano work, but its less flashy and wears its heart on its sleeve a little more blatantly. “Weekend” is a delicate piano song about the sadness we all experience when we sit down and really think about how much of our life is spent at work and how the only solace we have for our Monday through Friday imprisonment is our two days off. No, there isn’t much mystery there, but sometimes we all need a break from rifling through the verses and piecing together whatever nuggets we can find, scratching our heads wondering what the hell Moses has to do with Gwyneth Paltrow anyway. “Sway” is, quite simply, the bait. It is the song that grabs you by the scruff of the neck with the verse and then, just when you are thinking about bailing, it changes key and grabs at your little heart strings. It’s easy to like right off the bat. “Pills,” arguably the best song on the record, doesn’t resort to sweeping keys to move you, it does so with words. It is a sad song about being broken and lost. “We’re not okay” might be a straightforward sentiment, but it’s a powerful one. More often than not sparse vocals combined with minimal instrumentation and straightforward lyrics lead to uninventive and childlike music. But that is not the case here. All of those elements here work to create a distinct mood that one would be best served over earphones during one of those long, dark winter commutes when everything seems pointless and Friday seems very far away. [www.perishers]