You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.
The TV comedians Armstrong and Miller used to perform as Scandinavian soft-rockers Strijka, a note-perfect parody right down to their wonky use of second-language English. Always a guilty pleasure, Roxette’s blustering attempt at widescreen jukebox Americana has some of the same appealing gaucheness.
Who could fail warm to a band whose hits collection was titled Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus!? One one level, at least, Roxette’s first new release in a decade comes as a very pleasant surprise.
After selling more than 60 million albums in the 1980s and 1990s, Fredriksson was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002, forcing her into semi-retirement. Happily, Charm School finds her duetting with guitarist Per Gessle with as much polished punch as ever.
Less impressively, these mid-Atlantic pop-rock anthems are resoundingly generic and impersonal, wavering between Bon Jovi-sized stadium-stompers like Way Out and cloying Scorpions-style power ballads like No One Makes It On Her Own.
It is heartening that these veteran Swedes appear healthy, but Charm School is simply too frictionless and focus-grouped, leaving scant room for the comically endearing Euro-clumsiness of yesteryear. Slick, but charmless.
