I have a real soft spot for Swedish bands, because they seem to treat the Cure and the Jesus and Mary Chain as shapers of music on the level of the Beatles and the Stones. It’s not the gothy, distant Cure though—it’s the happy-poppy Cure that came along after 1985.
So why not go from Caesars back to their musical primordial soup? There were several contenders from the mighty Cure that could’ve fit here, but this outtake from A Head on the Door was both less familiar and flat-out better than the others. As a demo, it feels remarkably complete, with the right mix of scrappy confidence and melodic hope that I was seeking as this mix’s “track 1.”
m. joosse
