Swedish dream pop extraordinaires, MAKTHAVERSKAN have returned to announce their upcoming fourth full-length, För Allting. Due out November 12th from Run For Cover Records, För Allting finds the Gothenburg-based piece bringing new elements into their sound to create some of their most sweeping and catchy songs to date.
To mark the announcement Makthaverskan have shared the album’s stunning first single, “This Time.” The track has all of the touchstones that make Makthaverskan so undeniably compelling–instant hooks, reverb-drenched guitar leads, post-punk bite, and the always jaw-dropping voice of vocalist Maja Milner–all pushed to even greater heights than ever before.
Makthaverskan’s music hinges on their unparalleled ability to blend blissful dream pop with dark post-punk, and on För Allting the band expand on this foundation to create some of their most sonically ambitious songs. Teaming with producer Hannes Ferm of HOLY, Makthaverskan incorporated drum machines, synthesizers, and more, bringing an even greater grandeur to their already awe-inspiring songwriting. The band’s driving rhythm section brings grit and energy while the waves of shimmering guitars provide the perfect vehicle for Milner’s soaring voice and incredible melodies. It’s a recipe that many have tried but few have perfected to this degree, and För Allting proves once again why Makthaverskan are one of the most singular bands in guitar music.
För Allting is due out November 12th from Run For Cover Records. Digital advances are available for review purposes upon request and the band is available for interviews. Please email [email protected].
Makthaverskan defies traditional genre definition. Their latest album, För Allting, flitters between blissful pop and angst-ridden punk, but it’s never content to land on any one set identity for long. As Pitchfork writes of the band, the Sweden-based outfit of five former schoolmates makes “music for the margins,” and here in the spaces of För Allting is a restless, unwavering need to explore.
För Allting signals a new beginning: it’s the first time Makthaverskan (vocalist Maja Milner, guitarists Hugo Randulv and Per Svensson, drummer Andreas “Palle” Wettmark, and bassist Irma Krook) have recorded with a producer: Hannes Ferm of HOLY. Propelling further into an identity that one will never fully grasp, each second of För Allting comes with something once unheard-of from the group. There’s drum machines, synthesizers, and a blissful, shimmering self-awareness that what they’re ultimately creating is dream-pop for realists. Makthaverskan is unafraid to face the contradictions between beauty and rage; instead, they turn them into something completely new.
“When we started the songwriting process for this album, I think we all were pretty determined to take the music in a new direction,” guitarist Randulv explains. “Not necessarily that we would sound ‘different,’ but to work on the songs using somewhat different methods than before. For our previous albums we have written the songs in our rehearsal space and pretty much recorded them the way they were. For this album we intended the songs to be finalized in the studio in a different and left some more room to work with.”
You’re free to explore this uncharted Makthaverskan territory, to attempt your own understanding of a band that feels larger than themselves, but the mystery, the unwillingness to ever fully reveal every trick is what makes the band so inherently special.
Opening the record with an untitled track that includes a simmering synth drone, Makthaverskan quickly engulfs you in its magic with the sweeping, dreaminess and Johnny Marr-like guitar work featured on “This Time.” Milner is a constant guiding force, a narrator that’s a mix of soft and tenacious, her gentle self-assurance most apparent on “Tomorrow.” Here, brisk instrumentals act as a sharp, but still twinkling backdrop for Milner’s lofty vocals to reach the fullest of heights. Milner later acts as a haunting vocal specter, as a regret-tinged mantra of “you used to be mine” is nearly engulfed in the thickness of dark drums and bass.
Blur genres, find your own moments of meaning, and familiarize yourself with Makthaverskan all over again with the release of För Allting, out November 12 in the United States on Run for Cover Records.
