NORWEGIAN indie outfit The Megaphonic Thrift are about to bring their swooning, soaring noise rock sound to these shores.
The four-piece will be showcasing tracks from their newly-released eponymous second album when they visit the Midlands as part of a mammoth 20-date European tour.
As the band criss-crossed the continent, band member Linn Frokedal spoke to Mail reporter TIM FLETCHER.
AS their tour van hurtles between the German cities of Cologne and Munster, the Megaphonic Thrift muse upon the age old paradox of band life on the road — so many cities, so little time.
"The driving can be quite hard because we spend all our time in the van and you don't really get to see much of the cities you're visiting," says Linn Frokedal, bassist and vocalist.
"We really enjoy it and we do have a couple of days off together so we'll be able to fit in a small holiday, which will be really nice."
The 20-date tour takes in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, France and the UK, affording the band ample opportunity to observe cultural differences among their gig-goers.
"We haven't played places like Cologne before so it's not absolutely packed but people have been really enjoying it," says Linn.
"In places like Germany and Belgium people really get into the music and in the UK the crowd is very good too, whereas in Norway people stand quite still, just listening."
The band's new self-titled album, the follow-up to their debut, 2011's Decay Decoy, has garnered largely favourable reviews, the Guardian hailing its 'blistering, exciting opening brace' and Q magazine awarding it four stars, noting a 'refreshing broadening of the palette', but are the band concerned by the critical reaction they receive? "Our manager keeps sending us the reviews and of course we read them," says Linn. "We've had really good reviews in Norway and Denmark and pretty good ones in Germany and England too.
"We are happy with out album anyway but of course we want other people to like it as well."
The album, created in their home town of Bergen, marked a step change from their debut, the songs for which were largely created by frontman Richard Myklebust, in that Linn, drummer Frederick Vogsborg and guitarist Njal Clementsen had a hand in its writing.
"On the last record Richard pretty much wrote all the songs and we'd been playing them live before we recorded them," says Linn.
"For this one, we were all involved in songwriting and we made all the songs together in the studio.
"Everything was fresh and I think you can hear that when you listen to the songs. I think you can hear a more specific sound and as a band we're developing our own sound."
The four all appear in other band, with Vogsborg's role in synthpop outfit Casiokids causing a particular challenge.
"They're on tour pretty much all year so it can be hard," says Linn. "It takes a lot of planning but we have a really good manager working for us so we're happy."
The band are on tour with up-andcoming Nottingham indie outfit Swimming and visit that city tomorrow (March 10) for a gig at the Boat Club, followed by a set at Birmingham Rainbow on Tuesday, part of their bid to increase their UK profile.
"We've played one show in Birmingham before and have played a couple of times in Nottingham.
"Our sound engineer is from there and of course we're touring with Swimming, who are really beautiful people and their music is great.
"I think England is a very hard country for bands because you have so many good bands yourselves so you really have to stand out to make the right people really love you.
"We love playing live, there's so much more energy and so many things you can do live you can't do on album — every night is different."
The Megaphonic Thrift appear at Nottingham Boat Club tomorrow (March 10) and Birmingham Rainbow on Tuesday (13). Tickets are available online at www.ents24.com.
