Perhaps best known for their hit song, “Jerk It out,” featured in the 2005 iPod Shuffle commercials, Sweden's Caesars are back with their latest effort, entitled Strawberry Weed. With an upbeat mixture of Farfi sa organ, surf-style drum riffs and muted space-age vocals, Caesars have created an infectious new album with a wide variety of nostalgic musical influences. All of the songs are rooted in 1960s-era pop/rock, with shades of The Who, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones, as well as a splash from The Monkees and even the Arctic Monkeys thrown in for good measure. “No Tomorrow,” despite its apocalyptic sentiments, is so perky that you've got no choice but to frug on a beach blanket as it blasts from your speakers. “Boo Boo Goo Goo” is another great song to blast on your drive to the beach for a day of surfing, picnics and fun in the sun. The one outlier here is the album's final track, “New Year's Day,” which shares the rest of the album's style and influences, but whose melancholy lyrics suggest it would be more at home in U2's later catalogue than bouncing you to your next destination. Recalling the good times of summers past, The Caesars have produced another carbonated glass of pop nostalgia that'll get you grooving even on the darkest of days.
--Laura Roberts [September 15, 2008]
