With a core of five multi-instrumentalists, The Jessica Fletchers create intricately organized, jangly-as-hell guitar pop/rock. Organs also feature prominently, as do horns, cello and sitar (courtesy of guest musicians). The arrangements are packed tight with interlocking instrumentation and unexpected changes. Four of the five core members also add layers of percussion to the tracks, giving the material an ultra-bouncy feel. The same ratio holds true in the vocal department, where harmonies abound; a number of additional guest vocalists are also featured.

The aforementioned Kinks are clearly a big influence here, as are the Beatles -- but to their credit, The Jessica Fletchers have a heavy (albeit still very poppy) psych presence in their songs, which gives them a pleasing edge. For example, opener "Bloody Seventies Love" jumps out of the gate with an upbeat verse, then downshifts into a subdued, atmospheric midsection that owes more to Van Der Graaf Generator than the Kinks. "Just Another Fashion Band" uses trumpets to propel its main melody, then counters the plummy-sounding horns with scraped guitar strings during the jagged chorus.

Throughout it all, the vocals are consistently impressive -- harmonies are layered over the already-extensive instrumentation, and all that detail makes the music sound distinctly ornate. The group has an extraordinary talent for cramming so many elements into their music without making it seem cluttered. More bands should have that ability!

The Jessica Fletchers make no effort to conceal their influences, but they are so damn good at what they do that you'll be hard-pressed not to enjoy even their most overtly referential songs. What Happened to The? is chock full of catchy-as-hell vocals and jangly guitar interplay, combined with marvelously warm production. No single member dominates the mix; this is a group effort in the truest sense of the term, and a superlative one at that.

The Jessica Fletchers present an alarmingly accurate mix-and-match take on Carnaby Street sounds, displaying transparent fandom and a cute ear for tunes and textures.

The Jessica Fletchers seem to have crawled right out of the novel and movie High Fidelity. It’s all there: they’ve got the ironic, pop-culture-inspired name (Kathleen Turner Overdrive, anyone?); their provenance is just obscure and exotic enough (they’re from Oslo); and, most importantly, all their songs sound like Kinks covers.

They earned their street cred opening for Apples in Stereo, and, like the Apples, they’ve got pure pop down to a science. Their new album What Happened to The? is crammed cover-to-cover with precisely crafted, finely tuned, three-minute gems of jangly, organ-driven, retro indie pop. They work in vintage touches like sitar and Davies-brothers rhythm guitar, and—best of all and unlike a lot of what comes out under the ‘indie’ banner—their songs don’t all sound like demos. The production quality is clean, clear, and bright, mixed to perfection. Like a lot of the bands I’ve been reviewing lately, what the Jessica Fletchers lack in originality they make up for with spirited playing and high-quality musicianship.

What really wins me over about the Fletchers is the blithe spirit with which they wear their influences on their collective sleeve, and the unserious way they approach making music, as witnessed in songs like “Bloody Seventies Love,” “Just Another Fashion Band,” and “Beatbox.” Mssrs. Sørensen, Mastrup, Innstø, Somdal, and Johansen realize that, among other things, rock is supposed to be fun. Now, they’re not campy-silly in the vein of, say, the Pizzicato Five, but they certainly don’t take themselves too seriously, which makes them one of the most purely appealing new bands I’ve heard in recent months.

With all that up-tempo goodness, however, my favorite touch might be the inclusion of the ballad “Shoot,” a sweet, electric-piano-driven number with vocals and melody exuding the innocence and charm of John Lennon’s love songs. It’s the second-to-last track and does a nice job of rounding out the album and bringing things to a close.

The Swedish rock explosion contiunes unabated, but what about Norway? You never hear of this country's rock scene, and yet there's plenty happening there. Sure, they may be a bit more passive than their Scandinavian comrades, but let's not write them off just yet. Oslo's The Jessica Fletchers offer up their own musical onslaught, with their wonderful debut album, What Happened to The?. Man, who knew that a pop overthrow could sound soooooo good? It's obvious that they like classic rock and pop music up in that northern European region, and Sixties pop and rock seems to have obtained a near-religious following among all these younger bands.

Listening to What Happened to The? is like taking a walk through a scrapbook of the British invasion. Do I get the feeling I've heard all of this before? I sure do. Bands I'm reminded of--but never enough to warrant a direct comparison to-- while listening to this album are, at varying points: Beatles, The Monkees, Beach Boys, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Turtles, Yardbirds, The Troggs, Lovin' Spoonful...I think you see where I'm going with this. When they really hit their stride and pull out the killer organ, such as on "Just Another Fashion Band" and "Christopher Jensen," they recall the terribly underrated Inspiral Carpets. (Heck, "Let's Go" even sounds like an odd rip off of Talking Heads' "And She Was," The Monkees' "Steppin' Stone" and The Kinks' "You Really Got Me"!!)

Of course, it's really easy to think of classic rock when your lead singer is a dead ringer for John Lennon. Really! It's scary, but when you listen to "Early Monday," "Next Year" and "I Got News," you'll think that it's 1965 all over again, and that these kids have stolen a roll of tape from Abbey Road and called those songs their own. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It's just really, really scary, listening to Thomas Innsto sing, because the comparison is uncanny--hell, it's immediate. Lennon and his little band, influential as they may be, never had The Jessica Fletchers' raw power and toughness. The Jessica Fletchers sound like the Beatles if the Beatles had been a Norwegian R&B-influenced garage band.

What Happened to The? is a really fun debut album, and what's more, I bet these kids are even better live. I can envision them tearing up the stage and making all the girls in the audience go crazy. Ironic, though, because I bet their audience is more like a room full of twenty-and-thirtysomething men. Still, I really have to say that they've made an impression on me, and it happened immediately. Not only is that rare these days, it's to be praised, admired, and respected. Watch this young band...

Second album from these Norwegian popstars, and it's definitely my favorite yet! This is one of those records where you have to fight yourself from trying to dance and bounce around to all of the songs (which can be counter-productive while you're at work). Taking huge cues from the Kinks and the best parts of the Nuggets box sets, as well as the poppier Elephant 6 groups like the Minders, Apples In Stereo & Of Montreal, the Jessica Fletchers play super-fun music, full of excited farfisas, jittery tambourines and loads of catchy melodies. And like the mentioned influences, there's an underlying element of psych-pop throughout these songs, usually just coming out in a brief break in the song here or a chorus there. Of course, the addition of a sitar to songs like "Next Year" do little to hide their psych-pop ways... The main thing keeping this record going besides the terrific music, though, is the album's relentless optimism and cheer. This is just one of those records that can't fail to put a smile on anybody's face!

13/13 

As my fellow PopMatters writer David Medsker noted in his recent review of an album by the Rhinos, there has been an explosion of releases by Scandinavian rock and pop bands in recent years. While the relatively high profiles of bands like the Hives and the Soundtrack of Our Lives have found critical praise and middling commercial success, there has been a veritable flood of lesser-known acts who've tried to export their sound out of Northern Europe and across the world.

At the forefront of this push has been the Parasol family of labels, which combined have been bringing the music of a scene that's truly flourishing across the Atlantic to North America. Now Canadian/US label Rainbow Quartz has joined in the fight (with some publicity support from Parasol), simultaneously releasing a set of discs labeled the Scandinavian 3 (the Rhinos, the Lovethugs, and the Jessica Fletchers). Rainbow Quartz is a label primarily known for producing indie pop with a decidedly retro edge, most notably acts like Cotton Mather and the Asteroid No. 4. Critics of the label have noted that many of the bands in its roster can easily be saddled with the description "derivative" and written-off as unoriginal. Of course, if every band that wore its influences on its sleeves were chucked out for that reason we'd eliminate 90% of rock history, great and small. Most of the bands on the Rainbow Quartz label know they're hopelessly retro, know they're derivative, know that they're emulating a style -- that's the point. Be it pure pop or psych-pop, these bands revel in their '60s heritage rather than try to overcome it.

The Jessica Fletchers, then, are a perfect match for Rainbow Quartz. The press on the band makes a big deal out of the fact that they've toured with both the Hives and the Apples in Stereo, but beyond the simple acclaim-by-association is a truth about the Jessica Fletchers: they sound like a marriage of these two acts. Derivative? Yes. Original? No. Delicious? Very. In merging a slightly lo-fi garage sound into the sunshine psych-pop, it's not hard to imaging the band appealing to both audiences. They're rough and garage-y enough to pass as a rock band, but they're upbeat and melodic enough to be a perfect pop band as well.

The disc begins with the warped electric guitar strains of "Bloody Seventies Love", a song that more or less sets the stage for the rest of the album. The psychedelic notes that open the track give way to the garage rhythms and jangling guitars of the chorus, all of which yields to a lysergic, Syd Barrett-like bridge of trippy vocals, then back to the poppy harmonies for the close. Catchy as hell and full of pop-rock hooks, the song is the first single from What Happened to The?, but in some ways it's deceptively slick. Less trippy is the following track, "Just Another Fashion Band", which instead opts for the swinging mod sound, driven by organs and trumpets into an Austin Powers dance scene. And that's the power of the Jessica Fletchers; they aren't nearly as one-dimensional as their retro pop description might suggest. What Happened to The? features guitars, organs, trumpets, cello, flute, and (of course) sitar, but rather than being singular, the disc isn't afraid to swing between styles within the over-all theme, often shifting gears mid-song.

When the band shifts into garage mode, as on "(Come On) It's Only Nine", there are even strains of later musical periods, and there's enough bratty attitude in the guitar playing to remind the listener of the Buzzcocks. But then they turn around with "Christopher Jensen" and turn into the Kinks and put on their best Davies brothers imitations. This kind of shifting tone continues throughout What Happened to The?, mixing lo-fi recording textures into power pop with an incredible ease. While the comparisons to bands like the Apples in Stereo are apt, there are moments where the Jessica Fletchers reach the nearly timeless pop joy of the Dandy Warhols, particularly on "I Got News". Closing with a variety of sonic treats, "Beatbox" offers the grittiest, bluesiest song on the disc, "Shoot" is cleanest Beatles approximation here, and "You Can Have Japan" takes things out on pastoral pure pop (cough, XTC, cough) note.

For all that, the hands down best thing about the Jessica Fletchers is that the music is just plain fun. Even bands that emulate the sunshine pop of the '60s often manage to turn out boring product (hey, it happened then too!), and there may be plenty of Scandinavian pop revivalists who fall into that camp, but the Jessica Fletchers get it right every time. Many of the songs on What Happened to The? were culled from previous EP and single releases on the Perfect Pop label in the band's native Norway, so they have the luxury of picking some of the best of their past to make up a full-length debut, but that doesn't take away from this album's start-to-finish pleasure.

You don't have to be a retro fan to see the appeal of the Jessica Fletchers, but if you're not you might not be able to look past the obvious "derivative" nature of their music. Too bad for you, because the rest of us are going to be enjoying this insanely fun band for as long as they keep up this kind of solid work.