Katzenjammer
Album: Rockland
Label: Propellor
Tracks: 11

Listening to the impish quality and energy with which Marianne Sveen, Solveig Heilo, Turid Jørgensen and Anne Marit Bergheim, four female folkies from Norway, invest their music, you can't help but think that a night on the town with them may well involve all manner of mischief. This, their third album, marks no significant musical changes from its predecessors, essentially following the girls' ancestors to America's Appalachian mountains for plenty of country/bluegrass leg-slapping tunes variously flavoured with an assortment of Americana spices. Well, that's not entirely true. Following the opening Old De Spain, a sort of bluegrass worksong narrative about burning down oppressors, and the sprightly stomping banjo-driven Curvaceous Needs where,Sveen warns slender rivals that her boyfriend is more turned on by her ample charms, you come to the, for long standing fans, perhaps aptly titled Oh My God on which they venture into lurching electronic beats as Solveig, in a cod English accent, raps on about snuffleuphaguses, Hello Kitty first aid kits, rabiafaws and being the Alpha Dog. It's fair to say it may well frighten the horses, which probably explains why the following track, Lady Grey, inspired by an old dear with Alzheimer's, is lovely, radio-friendly calypsoish tumble with a joyous uplifting chorus.

Thankfully, there's no such other surprises in store, so you can settle back into the equally catchy folksy harmony and handclapping pop of My Own Tune and the 50s doo wop meets Katy Perry Shine Like Neon Rays (a sort of don't let the daily grind get you down ditty), gospel blues Driving After You's Sveen showcase, the rhythmically jittery metaphor-mixing Flash In The Dark and the breezy, Irish folk-tinted My Dear (which has the singer wonders whether her lover's passion can stay the course of babies crying and her skin getting wrinkled).

As with its opening, the album plays out on two more traditional flavoured tunes, the flurrying acoustic folk-blues Bad Girl with its slide guitar licks and the multi-harmony, acoustic-based title track which, part-based on Ginsberg's Howl and referring to the psychiatric hospital where he spent time, also deals with (but more rather celebrates) the related notions of outsiders and individuality. UK audiences have already embarked on one Scandiniavian female-folk love affair with First Aid Kit, but there should certainly be room to share their affections. Just be wary of taking up any invitations to join them on a pub-crawl.

Mike Davies