Have Sweden's Red Sleeping Beauty really been cranking out beautiful indie-pop for more than 30 years? The group's newest, Diary, is out this week, and it's absolutely as superb as you'd hoped it would be. From the emotive and direct "This Heart's Now Yours", to the sleek New Wave of "New York, New Me", this is smart stuff. Red Sleeping Beauty are doing things here which take this away from the genre conventions of jangle-pop and into the realm of electro-pop, though there's a sensibility that's the same, of course. The elegant "Summer House", for example, owes more to New Order than anything else, and that precise sense of how to present a song carries this into its own special space. "Could Have Been Me", to use another example, veers into the mannered indie disco of Nineties Saint Etienne, and fairly convincingly too. Still, there's a lightness here which is utterly beguiling. "The Sound of Summer", a cut with Mary Wyer of Sarah Records pioneers Even As We Speak, is a delight. A neat blend of the conventions of dance pop with the mind-set of indie-pop, the track is a clear highlight of Diary. Taken together, the selections on Diary maintain a vibe that's measured, with sleek surfaces and percolating bits of keyboards and rhythm backing throughout, behind vocals which are warm and emotive. Those comparisons to New Order point in the direction of others of that era: Pet Shop Boys, Electronic, and even a hint of Momus. Red Sleeping Beauty have pulled away anything that would weigh these numbers down, and the material soars and swoons in equal degree. Every composition here is neatly constructed, and simple and direct in a way that lots of indie is not. That's a sign of confidence in the skills of the members of the band. And in the case of Red Sleeping Beauty, they've got a lot to be confident about. —A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed

This legendary Swedish POP! band's fifth lp is actually a collection of the 12 songs they released each month throughout 2024 (plus a couple extras!) that shows them at the top of their game, even after 35 years! —Jigsaw Records