Jag Rear Ut Min Själ / Jag Rear Ut Min Sjal

All of the albums and EPs by Swedish pop sextet Bob Hund are officially untitled. Jag Rear Ut Min Själ! Allt Skall Bort! (My Soul Is For Sale! Everything Must Go!) is the slogan on the posters of the bandmembers dotting the album's artwork, and it's used to differentiate this 1998 release from the other self-titled Bob Hund records. Those who think Swedish pop begins with ABBA and ends with the Cardigans likely wouldn't know what to make of Bob Hund's arch, new wave-influenced pop. As skittish as post-punk icons like Magazine or the Gang of Four, Bob Hund also possess a frothy pop edge: One song is called "Tralala Lilla Molntuss, Kom Hit Skall Du Fa En Puss!" (Tra-La-La Little Cloud, Come Here And I'll Kiss You), and it sounds like they're only kidding a little bit. Bob Hund does have a puckish sense of humor — the opening instrumental, "Bob Hunds 115:e Drom," namechecks one of Dylan's most famous early songs and baldly rips off Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" riff, and then there's the song whose title translates roughly to "Shouldn't There Be a Revolution Going On?" — but this is overall one of the band's more serious records, with a newfound sociopolitical bent to Thomas Oberg's lyrics (as always, all the lyrics are in Swedish) and a less manic musical demeanor than on the group's occasionally silly early records. The band produced the album themselves for the first time (Bob Hund's early records were produced by the Swedish pop trio Eggstone), and there's an increased keyboard presence that shifts the musical balance of power toward vintage synthesizer buff and obvious Kraftwerk fan Jonas Jonasson. Sounding less like Pavement crossed with XTC than their earlier records did, Jag Rear Ut Min Själ! Allt Skall Bort! is a solid, mature album that overshadows the group's influences.