Delay Trees: "Cassette 2012"

In my experience, Scandinavian apocalypse songs tend to mimic their landscape: kelp-scented, glacial, and formed from one prolonged hurricane that could be either typhoons or drone music (or armageddon). So when I first heard “Cassette 2012” and its tinkling intro leaping into guitar pop, my expectations took a slap in the face. Surely a trio from south Finland who’ve written a song with a post-Mayan calendar date could enjoy a more desolate view of the future—one where John Cusack’s iRiver explodes and he’s reduced to using his old Saisho TR60? Not here. Lobbied as one of the most interesting bands to come out of the Nordic indie scene, the Delay Trees choose to fight seven-month winters with something more original than drone, and saunas, and tire chains, and cinnamon coffee: dream pop.

Yes, it might be a genre that few dare tackle unless traumatised by John Hughes soundtracks, but the Trees tackle it well, capable of bridging Johns Cusack and Hughes in a story beyond time-traveling hot tubs. “The world ends in 2012,” chimes angel-voiced lyricist Rami Vierula, reflecting on a soured fling with a backing girl and telling his beau to go “Speak to me in tongues / Or through fire alarms / Don’t lay your shadow on / Innocent, innocent, innocent.” His continental lovesick delivery and its two central chords seem to mimic Peter Sarstedt’s “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?”, though Vierula’s voice and his band’s chug and glockenspiel form a colder, less cravat-clad sense of loss. Though the guitars hardly budge outside of a single looping fret, they work perfectly with the rest of the track’s gloomily pop-conscious keyboards, and when Vierula sings “I’ll meet you in 2012 / On the stage where we first met / And I’ll bring you up a cassette,” you know he’s trying to rekindle something stronger than a retro-recording format. Non-native cynics might label the Delay Trees as just a reaction to Finland’s national suicide rate, but Rami Vierula sings like he’s genuine, and not just reacting to low temperatures and vast expanses of granite.