309) Ramona's Tea Party - Pour Your Heart Out

Where’s Tonsberg?

I ask because if you know well done as I hadn’t a clue. It’s in Norway and seemingly Ramona’s Tea Party are one of Norway’s most energetic live bands.

The four piece are led by Ramona Lundberg on guitar and lead vocals with Christopher Lyngedal backing her on guitar and assisting with the songwriting. The band is completed by Lars Stray on bass and Nikolai Lysnes on drums.

You may have heard of them, I haven’t but if you want a quick dive go straight to Perpetual Machine and if that’s for you then so is this record. A strong vocal from Ramona and then one of those magical swirling riffs that goes around and around and doesn’t stop from start to finish, see also How to Make You Fall in Love for further proof, I get the energetic thing here.

The record opens with the sparse Waves the band laying down a template of what is to come showing they can do the big emotional tracks as well as punk out.

That voice is equally as powerful against just a piano on I Used to Be an Adult, the band are restrained and a nice reflective lyric and the title track is a simple acoustic guitar on the verses before gentle backing vocal on the chorus, then let’s lash it out for the final minute, a violin in there as well for good measure. 

Ode to Nino the Black Rabbit sounds like a track from a Fall album, good guitar but I am not one hundred percent sold on it but Suzanne we are back on the riffs, and they know how to do a chorus.

This is only the second record from a band in the early twenties they have moved on from the punk sound of their first record (although I must confess to only listening to that once – its called Steep for X Minutes and is also worth your time) and are developing their sound to dare I say it a more emotional level.

I look forward to seeing where they go.

7/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Perpetual Machine