The Elephants - Take It!

Thu 15th Oct, 2009 in Music Reviews

Hey Denmark, have you been keeping quiet about your vibrant and exciting underground music scene this whole time? While names like The Raveonettes and Mew may be familiar to us, there seem to be very few bands that have emerged from the tiny European country.

Thankfully, The Elephants decided to poke their heads out. Their second album Take It! managed to find its way beyond the European borders, and it shows that there might be more happening among the Danes than what we first thought.

For the uninitiated, here is The Elephants’ story in brief. A five-piece fronted by Bjarke Bendtsen, the band hail from Copenhagen. They released their debut album in 2007, and cite among their influences the Beach Boys and the Flaming Lips, as well as (I swear I’m not making this up) “other animals (seagulls eg)”, “huge quantities of accumulated love”, “hidden formulas”, and “confused doctors”. They also claim to love “funny instruments, trees and long walks”. And obviously, they’ve got an off-kilter and cheeky sense of humour too.

This charming quirkiness is fitting for the band, whose music is similarly endearing. The album kicks off with The Organ Grinder, a gorgeous pop ditty that is instantly likable thanks to its sweet guitar leads and the small subtle flourishes that accentuate the track: echoing chords, quiet horn and ethereal harmonies and choruses. The Elephants have got a real knack for crafting a catchy pop tune: just listen to Take It!, the stomping title track with its chant-along chorus and power-pop melodies, or video-game-meets-retro-disco-esque Turtle Struggles, for proof.

Were it not for the subtle hint of Danish accent in Bendtsen’s voice, you could almost mistake the poignant acoustic Eva, with its dreamy backing vocals and horns, for a Stuart Murdoch/Belle and Sebastian ballad. It’s one of the more bittersweet songs on the album, along with the beautifully psychedelic Now and the epic closing track What Happened? The sad undertone could be explained by the passing of the band’s original bass player Rasmus Nybo a year before the record’s release. But despite its sad undertone, the songs retain an uplifting vibe that gives the album an instantly infectious quality.

Simple, sweet and a little off-beat, Take It! is a wonderful second offering from The Elephants. So Denmark, what other great indie music secrets have you been hiding?

Take It! is out now on Tapete Records.