Flannel is one of those spacey pop bands, dabbling lightly in dreamy shoe-gaze-like moments. The music paints a colorful sunset much like that found on the cover of Dear Something, Dear Someone. It’s the perfect album to listen to through headphones while staring up at the sky as the sun is setting; it’s very peaceful.
With tight percussion, reverb-filled vocals, and softly distorted guitars, songs like “Drops” and “Saving This Moment” and “Yesterday’s Crane” hint of Swedish artists like The Radio Dept circa Lesser Matters. Flannel, however, differs from such groups in that Dear Something, Dear Someone closely follows the DIY and lo-fi categorizations.
Also contrary to acts like The Radio Dept, Flannel lives up to the bedroom pop name; along with being lo-fi, the songs tend to me much slower and softer with a few minor exceptions. One exception is the upbeat, uptempo “Spring Time,” which features a double-time beat but remains soft and light in the instrumentation and vocals.
For fans of Swedish pop, Flannel fits the mold–Swedish pop tends to be a bit homogenous in that it tends to have that distinct “Swedish Pop” sound. The big surprise is that Flannel is not from Sweden. Nor are they from the US. They’re from Japan!
Series II Records [CD, 2008]
1. Spill
2. Drops
3. You Should Take Your Time
4. Saving This Moment
5. Spring Time
6. Where Before The Water Becomes The Stream
7. Soundtrack
8. Morning, About The Mill And Mugs
9. Yesterday’s Crane
10. Light
11. Slow Waltz
12. To Begin With
2023 Update
The CDr has long been out of print, and Series II Records seems to have disappeared as well. However, Flannel continued to release new music with a remaster of a single as recently as 2020. You can find Dear Something, Dear Someone on Bandcamp.
