The Fine Arts Showcase Sings Rough Bunnies by: Tom Perry Sun:22-Jul-07 Label: Adrian Year: 2007 WB rating 66 out of 100

Romance isn’t dead. It’s just taken the form of a couple of copulating rabbits.

A covers album by Swede Gustaf Kjellvander (under his new title of The Fine Arts Showcase), Sings Rough Bunnies is just as it says: Fine Arts Showcase singing tunes by Swedish pop punkers Rough Bunnies. In literary terms, Sings Rough Bunnies is a secretive journey through a young girl’s diary. Tales of sexual discoveries, Bryan Adams songs, lost friendships, farewells at Oslo train stations and missing your prison-inmate father, this album is awash with pubescent teen angst, all crammed into 30 minutes.

But the hook that makes this album fun isn’t just the fact that most of the tales told in each song are full of girly sweetness. Rather it’s the Fine Arts Showcase sound itself – and in particular, Kjellvander’s sensationally produced voice, mixing with the aforementioned feminie splendour of Rough Bunnies’ original words, that make it work so well.  Instead of coming across as simply a cute, slightly cheeky female pop record, what we’ve got here is an album by a man who’s lovingly singing through diary entries, discovering her fascinations, disappointments, sexuality, crushes – the works. This grown male’s perspective on adolescent female territory delivers a fresh-sounding positive romanticism to Sings Rough Bunnies; and it’s bloody infectious.

Opener ‘Balz Came And Went’ establishes the fun nature of the album perfectly. Any album that opens with the lines: “Suddenly one night you said to me/‘one day you wanna give me a little Rough Bunny’/If at first you’ll fuck like rabbits for a little more time” is one that clearly doesn’t bother too much with cryptic lyrics. But immediate does not always mean trite. Fourth track, ‘World Of Love’, has a great poetic rhythm to it. Separately the music and lyrics may simply sound naff and fairly cheap, but the sum of the parts ensures it goes in the other direction, providing a strong sense of warmth to the album 10 minutes in.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, sixth tune ‘I Say Goodbye’ takes us to Oslo Train Station for a farewell on the 19th of 19 platforms. But it’s not for a classic movie farewell between lovers. No, it’s slate-cleaning and starting life afresh. More than any other track on the album, the delivery of ‘Goodbye’s’ very odd lyrics in this one that provide head-turning amusement (or at the very least, confusion) that only serve to add to the album’s kitschy appeal. Try and listen to the rushed delivery of the second verse’s final line: “Only the fishes can see that I’m HIV positive” without doing a double take. In some ways the whole style of this album is full of these types of oddities.

Tracks such as ‘Dance With Your Shadow’ and ‘What A World’ are the most textbook examples of where this album’s man-singing-girly-tunes format delivers. Without Gustaf’s strong harmony-laden vocals and some solid guitar hooks, these songs would just sound like a pieces of cheese from the latest high-rotation pop singer. But with the Fine Arts Showcase sound in full swing, these two are the pop tunes that will hook the punters – think a Euro-sounding Crowded House.

Let’s be clear though: this album is highly disposable stuff. It’s a great spring pop record, but it’s not one that’s going to stay with you and rack your brain. Apart from possibly giving you a wry smile as images of horny teenage rabbits dart through your head (or is that just me?).

But Sings Rough Bunnies is a hard album to critique at face value. Should it be set against Rough Bunnies’ own original sound? Or should be it judged as an album by a great outfit from Sweden full of cute tunes that just happen to be written by someone else?

Having not even heard of Rough Bunnies before reviewing this – I preferred to enjoy Sings Rough Bunnies on its own merits. It is quick, fun storytelling with an adolescent bent. Think a mix of the refreshing lyrical style of The Grates or Dogs Die In Hot Cars, with a little more sleaze. It provides the listener with a fresh, modern and un-bitter romanticism that will infect some but definitely not all. Regardless of my opinion, it’s my suspicion that the Rough Bunnies team would be pretty chuffed indeed by the whole thing.