Like an actual cannonball landing on the lawn, crushing a few biennials and arriving wholly out of nowhere, "Puttgarden" ushers in the return of Swedish duo The Embassy, long dormant and never-quite-heralded-enough pioneers of the airy/tragic Gothenburg sound, whose earliest work preceded and foretold The Tough Alliance, Studio, Air France. September 27th on Service, The Embassy are releasing Life in the Trenches: The Other Side of 2001-2011, an album of mostly unheard and unreleased material, and, due this winter, they've announced a forthcoming full LP of totally new music. Off Life in the Trenches, looking back and forward simultaneously, the instrumental "Puttgarden" eschews Fredrik Lindson's pleading vocals and his heartbreaking short A's, instead guiding the track across pattering drum breaks with a guitar line that sounds almost surf-like. The track's paired with an eerie video called "Burn Like It Should," animated sparely by Calle Magnell so that every hammer and water cooler (and hanging body and disembodied heart) feels imbued with extra meaning. "The human being is bored," the director wrote of "Burn Like It Should." "We have eaten the flesh, long sucked the fruit and lit that fire again and again." The film was part of his studies at Stockholm University before it was paired with the song, but he might as well have been talking about The Embassy, announcing their new grand plans, as he went on: "Let's redo everything as if for the first time."
