Portico:

The Mary Onettes have hit a sweet spot in their career, where they’re working at the height of their powers and realizing the magic that's in their particular chemistry. Their third album, Hit the Waves, was a remarkable collection that showed the world that the Swedish group had quickly matured and were locked in, having pushed all their previous bad luck into the past. Portico is the follow-up EP, which at seven songs offers up nearly a complete album’s worth of material. However, rather than waiting for further material to add to this set, the band were honest and knew they had everything they wanted to accomplish right here. “Silence Is a Gun” is so strong it had to bat leadoff. Yet the magic of the forlorn “Ritual Mind,” the extended pop glare of “Naive Dream” (with its pulsing excitement), the solemn and gorgeous “Bells for Stranger,” and the beautiful synthetic hook of “Your Place” invite comparisons from The Smiths to The Cure to the many modern bands who also borrow from the ‘80s playbook.