Send "Regina " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Noripcord |
 It’s not often that the first 20 seconds of an album-opening song will give a completely accurate prediction of the album that’s about to unfold. It’s even more rare still that such an occurrence is actually a good thing. Through the opening arpeggios and the entrance of vocals, the only thing you can hear is a triumphant eruption of melodic dream pop.It’s easy to be overtly effusive about this sort of stuff, whether or not it’s fully justified. Soita Mulle isn’t particularly deep on first listen — sure, you have some ethereal vocals, a rhythmic drive that cuts through the track, and there’s an entrancing sense of melody that ties everything together, but those things aren’t quite enough. Sure, it’s essential that everything clicks and that the individual parts are effective — and there’s hardly a foot set wrong here if we’re to discuss the mix and production. Throw in some general cohesiveness as an album and this gets closer to being worthy of that effusiveness. There’s even a good sense of variety to Soita Mulle that rescues it from the potential doldrums of dream pop (they exist, though I’d clearly be more inclined to believe myself that they are only a myth.) When it comes together, this is a generally cohesive, largely effective body of work. The melodies are infectious, even when seen as a whole across the album, and the Finnish vocals are brilliantly integrated into the album’s meandering path....full text |
| Onechord |
| I haven’t written about Regina for a really long time, but it’s not because I’ve stopped caring or anything like that. I just tend to overlook the well-known pop groups here and focus on the smaller bands that gain way too little attention elsewhere. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the quality of the music. In fact, Regina’s new album Soita Mulle sounds insanely great. If I don’t even mention that such an amazing pop treat has been released a couple of days ago, I should just quit making “a finnish pop site” and start some damn country & western music blog. Soita Mulle is out now in Finland and Friendly Fire will release the album in USA on september 20....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| That thing about a picture being worth a thousand words? Someone should remind Regina. The front cover of the Finnish indie pop band's fourth proper album, Soita Mulle (Finnish for "Call me"), is adorned with a beautiful black-and-white photo (taken by Megan Kathleen McIsaac) of two boys lying shirtless in a pastoral setting. Unfortunately, the ugly and carelessly placed typeface obscures and, in effect, blunts the image's aesthetic beauty. Obviously, the band has a need to claim ownership for the album's contents, but the image on its own so excellently represents Soita Mulle's sensual, arresting feel that it functions strongly as a statement of purpose. Largely, Regina are working within what many listeners will instantly recognize as the dreamy, limitless confines of shoegaze-- only, their take on it is less staticky and obscured than the way today's younger bands have approached the genre. Soita Mulle's most impressionistic moments sound clean and deep-- an approach similar to what stateside shoegazers School of Seven Bells did on last year's Disconnect From Desire-- providing space to wrap yourself within their compositions, rather than attempt to smother you with blistering, fuzzy noise. This sound fits Regina like a glove, and the new look largely makes Soita Mulle their best record yet-- admittedly, an easy feat. Since 2005's Katso Maisemaa, the band's toyed with various genres and sounds just close enough to occasionally mix and mingle-- the cool allure of French yé-yé, snatches of downtempo dance music, Stereolab's bouncy warmth. 2009's U.S. debut, Puutarhatrilogia, marked their most consistent effort at that point, but Iisa Pykäri's thin, power-bereft voice resulted in her surroundings sounding occasionally chintzy and under-produced. On Soita Mulle, multi-instrumentalist/principal songwriter Mikko Pykäri's production hand is heavy on the lushness, resulting in something more full-bodied and robust in sound. And, the improvements that Iisa's made as a vocalist are not to be overlooked: the album's highlights find her dipping in and out of melodies, filling the air with her voice, and effortlessly unleashing torrents of Finnish syllables. When she lets out a sweet melodic sigh near the end of "Haluan Sinut", you breathe with her, and that's a good thing. Of course, Regina being Regina, the band still does a bit of outside-the-lines genre exploration, and as on previous efforts, it doesn't always come out well. On one hand, the piping synths of "Ui Mun Luo" gel with the song's cosmopolitan shuffle; on the other, "Harjun Takaa" seems an attempt to embrace upwards-moving anthemic melodic structures, ending stuck on the tarmac instead. The misses scattered between Soita Mulle's hits make the album drag as a front-to-back listening experience-- and this record is nine tracks in under 35 minutes. Forget the cover art: the real tragedy about Soita Mulle is that Regina grab the brass ring of consistency for the first time in their career, and with excellent results-- they just can't seem to hold on the entire time....full text |
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