Stream: The Legends, ‘The Embrace’

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The Legends (Photo by Henrik Halvarsson
The Legends (Photo by Henrik Halvarsson)

Devout and often underground fans of Swedish indie-pop (note: editor raises hand) know that The Legends are not a group of aging classic rockers but the project of one man, Johan Angergard, who runs the best damned label in Stockholm, Labrador Records. Back in those crazy days of mail-order, the music of Angergard’s other bands, Acid House Kings and Club 8, trickled cross the ocean via Illinois-based Parasol (belated thanks for all those mailers). As the Legends, Angergard has waxed melancholy in varying forms: shoegaze, post-punk and synth-pop. Soulfully electro, he sounds particularly disconsolate on the Legends’ first album in six years — which, like the band name, has a dollop of irony in its title, “It’s Love.” Out Oct. 16, the album is informed by the soul-searching that ensued when the songwriter turned 40, watched a relationship dissolve and felt increasingly detached from his role as a label boss. “I felt old and like I didn’t belong anywhere … some sort of no-man’s-land. Free floating,” he says. “I spent 2014 looking back on things that happened only recently, but with emotions and experience from 40 years squeezed in there. I don’t know if this all sounds a bit pessimistic. It shouldn’t. It’s a new start. There’s a lot of hope. There’s love.” Having been there, felt that, “The Embrace” stopped us in our tracks.

||| Stream: “The Embrace”