Ask most people to name you some music from Norway and at best you'll hear some reference to A-Ha or maybe even The Kings Of Convenience. More likely you'll get "Norwegian Wood... oh, hang on, that was The Beatles" but most probably you'll get a blank stare. In fact, Norway occupies the unenviable position of somehow managing to have carved out a niche in the musical shadow of their western near-neighbour Iceland.

Nevertheless, it's to the East that Surferosa look with this debut album. First stop Sweden, home of some of the coolest new rock music in the world, for sure, but Surferosa pillage a bit further into their neighbours' musical heritage. In fact, what sets this music apart from Roxette is... well... nothing, to be honest. Whether this is a good thing or not really depends on how much you like pop music. It's undeniable that most of these songs are as catchy as hell, the lyrics are as fluffy and throwaway as a puppy on Boxing Day, and the production is just plain slick. Substantial it ain't.

So anyway, further East the journey goes. "Chinese Moon" is probably the pop highlight of the album, pitched somewhere in-between Shonen Knife's twin stabs at Chinoisiere, "Gyoza" and "Chinese Disco". "Lucky Lipstick" starts out like The Ramones in one of their more sensitive moods (i.e. not very sensitive at all) but the video - helpfully included as a bonus section - is awash in neon Japan-fetish imagery and "Neon Commando" even goes so far as to include a chorus that goes "We lo-o-ove Japan!" over and over again. In fact, they love Japan so much that even when they were last in London, they made sure they played with notorious Japanese ex-pats Mika Bomb.

Whether or not they've ever actually been to Japan or not I don't know, but if they haven't then that just suits the mood of disposable artificiality right down to the ground. The heavy-handed application of the synthesizers will annoy some and the calculated vacuousness will ensure that it's never anything other than bubblegum pop. That it is largely successful bubblegum pop is down to the high-velocity attack of the power chords, the aggressively infectious choruses and the fact that they have a fearsome, linguistically ambitious, Teutonic, Nazi schoolmistress for a singer. Good, but approach with caution. -Ian Martin, May.09.04

Shanghai My Heart