This Year's Model

We Walk Like Ghosts

Rolling Stone – April 2011 – rated: 4/5

Elegant Swedes playing the pop of 1988 

“Here we are millionaires”, they are singing, these likeable Swedes – and they feel confident: “Nothing can go wrong”. Of course a band with this name is rather a “yesteryesteryear’s model”, with Elvis Costello merely godfathering the christening. But with these ghosts of 1988 that they have summoned for their second album – a year in which David Gedge and Wedding Present were no longer unruly, the Go-Betweens had released their best album “16 Lovers Lane” and Jazz Butcher sold out the Hamburger Markthalle – they can channel in the best way possible: they nearly strike us dead with their melodies.
No one would ever dare to call them “adorable underdogs” – so elegantly, so sublimely are they coming to get in touch with us, with recently unpacked patent leather shoes (nope, no shoegazerism!) hastening over Brighton Pier. “I swear I was there” harbours the irresistibility of Cure hits like “Just Like Heaven”, you can imagine Robert Forster twitch in his canary yellow jacket to “A Whisper Around The Town” , and “Publisher’s Son” would easily enrich a best-of compilation by Lloyd Cole. In weaker moments, Niklas Gustafsson and co are a little reminiscent of Fury & The Slaughterhouse and the sound of a indie disco in Kiel – but these moments are so rare, that they don’t matter. In order to use a yesterday’s word as an overall judgement: splendid!

– Frank Lähnemann

Ox-magazine – rated: 8/10

Access – rated 4/5

Der Spiegel – March 2011

Szene Hamburg

Nun hatte Marsh Marigold – der Name macht hier keine Schlenker – schon immer ein Faible für Pflanzen. Doch während sich manches Knabenkraut erst mit den Jahren zur veritablem Engelstrompete formte, waren This Year's Model eigentlich von Anfang an die – nun ja – Prinzessbohnen. Also die Aristokraten im Popgarten. Well nun aber die Aristokratie allen Hochzeiten zum Trotz nicht gerade vor einem Comeback steht, wundert einen das etwas morbide Grundthema des zweitens Albums der Schweden nicht weiter. Das Geisterhafte jedenfalls zieht sich durch die meisten der dreizehn Stücke., Ganz buchstäblich; als Nicht-Loslassen der Vergangenheit; als überirdischer Klang … Na ja, in welcher Form auch immer sie sich anschleichen, fröhlich sind sie nicht, diese Geister. Dabei ist es ihnen auch ganz gleich, dass die Schweden ihnen mit ihren Songs ein paar sehr sorgfältig konstruierte und liebevoll eingerichtete Häuser gebaut haben. Aber der beste Pop hatte schließlich immer schon eine mittelschwere und nicht selten grundlose Depression.

Gregor Kessler – Szene Hamburg

The Clock Strikes Ten (2007)

Indiepages.com - rated: 14/15
Marsh Marigold has had a pretty amazing year for releases; only three albums for the whole year, but they are all classics! But while much praise has been rightfully heaped upon the Love Dance and Cats On Fire full-lengths, the third release in the batch (the debut album from This Year's Model) has had comparatively less fanfare. I can't think of a plausible reason for this disparity, as the songs on this record are basically just as catchy and memorable as those of the others', and in terms of packaging, this is easily the winner, thanks to the novel motif (complete with short stories in the accompanying booklet from Dickon Edwards, Vic Godard and Jessica Griffin all based on the album title's theme). I was going to remark that the singer's voice sounds remarkably like the guy from the Higher Elevations, until curiosity forced me to actually pull out a Higher Elevations record to discover that he is the singer from that band! I guess that would explain why this band shares a similar sound in several places (particularly in the catchier songs, like "Birthday Letters", "Age - Getting Over It Properly" and "What Did I First Hear?"), although there are frequent flashes of elegance here that weren't apparent in his older band, such as in the keyboard-heavy "I Think The Snow Saved Me" and "I Am My Best Friend's Acquantaince". All told, this is an excellent debut album and neatly completes the Marsh Marigold 2007 trilogy of perfect pop records! MTQ=14/15

Notes # 135, September 2007
Pop is not least of all the big art of quotations, the play with forms and surfaces, the weaved river of thoughts of illusions and concerns, the secret pleasure of significally loaded nonsense which is nevertheless in the end expression and beat that sets the head and body moving. This Year’s Model have really inhaled their Warhol completely. Named after Elvis Costello’s classic 1978 album, in their forceful pop music you can hear traces of a young Jarvis Cocker as well as Robert Forster and David Gedge. The sound is enriched with a huge portion of guitar twang, which is hard to place somewhere between classic Byrds-jangle and the strumming of the Class of ’86. They have given the well sounding name ‘The Clock Strikes Ten’ for their debut album, thankfully using the obvious associations of the crime story by having asked Dickon Edwards, Vic Godard and Jessica Griffin to write three short stories in which the clock strikes ten. The results are presented in the beautifully designed booklet instead of song lyrics. The stories don’t necessarily have anything to do with the music itself, but the pleasure of reading them is huge! This is pop!
-THXL

Allmusic.com
Swedish indie poppers This Year's Model may take their name from the classic Elvis Costello album, but in fact their true musical forefathers are a certain breed of post-Costello bands from the '80s: these 15 songs feature lashings of the Go-Betweens, the Wedding Present, the Monochrome Set (whose semi-retired lead singer Bid pops up here to add vocals to "O, Heaven Help My Foolish Heart," which among other things points up just how much This Year's Model singer Niklas Gustafsson sounds like him), and Prefab Sprout, among others. In other words, this is elegant, musically sophisticated indie pop that's deeply melodic without being instantly hummable. Lyrically, The Clock Strikes Ten flirts with being a concept album; the elaborate packaging includes three brief, noirish short stories by Vic Godard of the Subway Sect, Jessica Griffin of the Would-Be-Goods, and Dickon Edwards of Fosca, each a mysterious vignette featuring the album title. The songs themselves continue the theme of crime and mystery without trying too obviously to create anything approaching a storyline. Highlights include the Scott Walker-ish dark-hued piano ballad "I Am My Best Friend's Acquaintance," the quirky, reverb-heavy waltz "I Think the Snow Saved Me," and the album's most immediate track, a jangly guitar pop tune with novelistic detail in the lyrics called "Ten O'Clock Murder," which sounds rather like Lloyd Cole and the Commotions had Cole preferred Raymond Chandler to Joan Didion. Anglophile indie rock fans of a certain age are going to be all over The Clock Strikes Ten, one of the most satisfying releases in this general style in years.
by Stewart Mason

Szene Hamburg September 2007
For a private label, run by an animal filmmaker who’s travelling a lot and which had its biggest success in Japan throughout the past years, Hamburg’s Marsh-Marigold label is lighting an impressive release firework at the moment. ‘The Clock Strikes Ten’ from Swedish band This Year’s Model is already the third new Marsh-Marigold album within a few weeks but it is not a quick shot at all. Certainly there is a close relation – let’s call it love – to the guitar pop of the 80’s (otherwise it wouldn’t have been released here). But this is poured so virtuously, variedly and often disarmingly beautifully into music that the listener will never get stuck in counting references. For pop fans the most illuminating release since the James Kirk album. – Gregor Kessler

Writings:
Intro.de
Outlawtorn
Lito Music
Indiepop.it

Greetings From This Year's Model (2005)

Indiepages.com
This Year's Model - "Greetings From..." 7" (Marsh Marigold) This is one of the recent new signings to Marsh Marigold, and I believe this is the band's first release. They hail from Sweden, and have a sound that's slightly dated , but in a good way. The first song, "The Postcard", kinda reminds me of the Higher Elevations, both in the vocals and music. The next two ("Mid-Feb" and "If I Were") are probably the better songs on the single and fit more in a Byrds/BMX Bandits type of vein with a jangly country-influenced pop sound. "A Place That's Real" closes the record, and fits halfway in between the two styles of the rest of the record. Let's hope to hear more from this group soon! MTQ=4/4

Guitars Galore
THIS YEAR'S MODEL - Greetings from This Year's Model (7"EP, Marsh-Marigold, Simrockstr. 111, 22589 Hamburg) The 4 tracks on this EP sound absolutely convincing! The guitars jingle and jangle, if they not just play strong chords. The "harmony singing" is wonderful, but never too sweet or exaggeratedly importunate. Simply beautiful! The songs of course are doing the rest. Hard to believe that this band is not resounded throughout the land, yet! That it is not running on all broadcasting radio stations on heavy rotation. No comparisons this time. This Year's Model are simply fantastic! (Rated 5 out of 5)