Tigerbombs – Crazy Kids Never Learn (2006)

As some of you will know, I used to write another blog where I went through geographic areas, such as countries, individual cities or States in the US and wrote a list of bands and artists from that place. When I did my posts on Finland, I rarely expected to find anything new, because I thought I was quite familiar with the Finnish music scene. However, I ended up finding some excellent new bands while compiling that blog, including the amazing Tigerbombs. Tigerbombs play energetic power pop with mid-00's indie rock guitar sounds. Some of the bands like that sound really old nowadays and I rarely listen to that musical genre anymore, but Tigerbombs sounded so incredibly good that I had to buy this album almost ten years after its release. The reason for their brilliance is not in sounds or being different for that matter, but in the fact that they make delightfully catchy songs with amazing pop melodies.



The album is a bit strange because it feels like the band has saved all of its greatest songs to the latter half of the album. The first few songs don't really reveal all the secrets this band has in store. In a way that's good, since then the album keeps getting better and better, but at the same time, it might drive away some listeners before they get to the good parts.

I only discovered Tigerbombs when I was already living in London, so I couldn't just go to the local record shop to buy their album. Also, it was already such an old album that I had difficulties in finding it in Finland either. I was, however, delighted to find that it was available online from even the UK-based providers.

The album starts with a short instrumental guitar song Magic Mountains that grows for a minute and a half, but in my opinion the band could've maybe left this off the album as it doesn't really bring anything relevant to the album as a whole. The album only really starts when those great melodic guitar riffs of The Higher the Fall start. It is very clear in this song that the band is Finnish as the accent is very clear, but other than that, it's a fantastic song. The chorus almost invites you to sing along and the pounding tempo is made for jumping along to it. I'm sure the band would be spectacular live. All Time Wasted cranks the tempo up even more. For some reason this song particularly sounds so much like most of the Helsinki-indie rock scene in the mid 00's even though Tigerbombs are actually not from Helsinki. The guitar riffs in Stop & Run remind me of The Smiths and otherwise there are elements similar to the legendary Finnish band 22-Pistepirkko. Get Around is one of my favourite songs on the album. The piano sounds work perfectly in the fast paced rock and the chorus is again brilliant in its melodies. Punch Me Up goes even further and I can quite comfortably call it the best song on the album. There are some great synth sounds along with the indie basslines and guitars and the melodies are just amazing, forcing you to jump and sing along. Shout Outs has some great backbeat rhythms and playful melodies that remind me of the summers in Finland. Subtle Shaking takes on a slightly alternative sound in the verses, but the chorus is here as well guaranteed Tigerbombs quality. Wait and See's aggressive rock tempo reminds me again of 22-Pistepirkko. The album ends with a slightly more calm song Hard to Forget. This kind of change in intensity would've been nice somewhere in the midst of all the fast-paced songs, but it's also a nice way to end the album.

I don't know why, but I watched the music video for Punch Me Up quite recently and I remember being quite pleased to find it had a video. The video is quite basic Finnish low budget video where the band is playing, but it's still nice to see how the band looks when they're playing and there is some effort in this video.

I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't know about Tigerbombs back in the day, because I sure would've liked to have seen them live around that time. Everything in this music sounds like my years as a young adult in university.

Listen to the album on Spotify.