BWO: 'Pandemonium - The Singles Collection'

Their UK chart career to date consists of two minor hit singles, 'Sunshine In The Rain' and 'Lay Your Love On Me', both of which peaked at No. 69 (phnarr) earlier this year. It's a rather different story in their native Sweden, where BWO have been pop favourites since they formed four years ago, racking up nearly 20 hits and scooping numerous gongs at the Swedish equivalent of the Brit Awards. The purpose of Pandemonium - The Singles Collection, therefore, is two-fold: one, to bring us tardy Brits up to date; two, to show us narrow-minded Brits what we've been missing out on.

At first glance, what we've been missing out on is a truly bizarre-looking pop trio. "A major record company would never put together a group featuring a 47-year-old man, a 43-year-old woman and a 26-year-old guy who looks like he's brought mum and dad on stage with him," said Alexander Bard, the group's chief songwriter and de facto leader, when interviewed by DS recently. So, do BWO try to play down their inherent oddness? Hardly - they're pictured on the cover of Pandemonium rocking a look that's part costume drama, part bondage basement.

They may look a little strange, but, funnily enough, BWO's music is anything but inaccessible. Bard describes the group as "the missing link between Kraftwerk and ABBA", but there's little doubt as to which of those acts wields the greater influence - hell, one track's even called 'Lay Your Love On Me'. Many of the songs here are camp, catchy Euro-pop ditties about dancing the night away at places where the "bass is thumping", the "crowd is jumping" and the "beats keep on pumping", but there are also a couple of subtler, more melancholy electropop tracks and some well-crafted but treacly ballads. To be honest, even Westlife might find 'We Could Be Heroes' a bit on the sappy side.

BWO have clearly hit upon a formula that works for them, but there's a healthy sense of the ridiculous here that prevents Pandemonium from ever becoming predictable. 'Barcelona' is surely the only song in pop history to name-check both Gaudi and Freddie Mercury; 'Voodoo Magic' has the chutzpah to rhyme "God" with "iPod" and one of BWO's best songs is about riding a chariot through the sky, "higher and higher ascending above".

All of this makes Pandemonium sound like an entertaining trifle - a collection of kitsch, inconsequential Euro-pop songs to listen to with a wry smile on your face. But thanks to the quality of the group's songwriting, it's often much more than that. At least 14 of these 18 tracks are blessed with the sort of all-conquering choruses that you can sing along to almost as soon as you hear them. For anyone who likes pop music, that's quite a lot to be missing out on.


> Click here to read our recent interview with BWO