The brilliant new album ‘Beyond The Dreams There’s Infinite Doubt’ (matcd063) from acclaimed Swedish pop act Azure Blue is now available from the Matinée shop!
The celebrated solo project of Tobias Isaksson, Azure Blue captured the hearts of music lovers around the world with the debut album ‘Rule Of Thirds’ (matcd059) and promotional tour covering ten countries in the past two years. The album received astounding critical praise, winning a Swedish independent grammy—the Manifest award—for best pop album in 2012 and enjoying exposure on both Swedish national TV and Spanish national radio. Among the outstanding reviews for the album, The Line Of Best Fit (UK) called it “nostalgia fuelled pop harking back to the heyday of Factory Records,” while Blurt Magazine (USA) named it “the best electro-pop record in recent memory.” Azure Blue toured extensively on the back of the success of the debut, across Europe in 2012 and taking in a live North American debut at the New York City Popfest in June of this year.
‘Beyond The Dreams There’s Infinite Doubt’ builds on the tremendous success of the debut with highly personal and deeply romantic songwriting bathed in especially polished production. Lead single ‘The Road I Know’ has been described as “a cacophony of vintage synthesizers battling for attention over a bed of whiplash electronic drums, all toned down by Tobias Isaksson’s romantic, softly delivered vocals.” The song is incredibly melodic and majestic all at once and recalls the magnificence of the Pet Shop Boys or New Order at their very best. Among many album highlights, opening track ‘Time Is On Our Side’ showcases Tobias’ elegant, warm vocals set to ambitiously sweeping instrumentation, while ‘Willows and Pines’ displays a downbeat splendor of captivating electronica and ‘Sunset’ is a hypnotic and especially ebullient masterpiece that sparkles in all the right places. You can preview these tracks on the Soundcloud player below.
Legendary music magazine PopMatters premiered the new album today, writing “Azure Blue creates a melange of ’80s synthpop textures and ’90s shoegaze vocals mixed with that wall of sound perfected by pop music back in the ’60s … yet this music sounds utterly contemporary.” PopMatters is hosting a stream of the full album today as well so head their way if you’d like to hear more.
The official release date of the album is October 8 but you can get a copy RIGHT NOW exclusively from the Matinée shop. Enjoy!