This Swedish indie pop outfit began to make an international breakthrough in 1993. The line-up initially comprised Andreas Mattsson (vocals/guitar), Fredrik Norberg (vocals/guitar), Kenny Vikstrom (bass) and Per-Arne Wikander (drums), who met on a school trip to Stockholm. They formed in the mid-80s and experimented with a number of musical styles before establishing themselves as Popsicle in 1991. The boisterous, Anglophile songs on Lacquer, especially the brazen pop of ‘Hey Princess’, earned them a Scandinavian Grammy two years later, and they briefly enjoyed infamy upon its presentation. Norberg’s inebriated acceptance speech included a death wish fatwa on Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest entrants of that year. Vikstrom was replaced on bass by Arvid Lind in time for Abstinence, at which time they had signed an international recording contract with Telegram Records, an imprint of Warner Brothers Records. Particularly on their self-titled album, the listener is constantly reminded that the band are singing in a foreign tongue; the mantric instrumental passages of tracks such as ‘Third Opinion’ and ‘Soft’, however, are wholly satisfying.