There is a brash grace to The Population‘s debut album, It’s Time To…, which plays out over a sharp, crisp 31 minutes and 11 songs, delving into proto-metal and punk born out of a foundation in rawer garage rock. The Swedish outfit made their debut in 2020’s Anthropocene/Anthropocide b/w Sacrifice two-songer 7″, with the notable duo lineup of guitarist/vocalist John Hoyles (Spiders, Troubled Horse, ex-Witchcraft, etc.) and drummer Axel Sjöberg (ex-Graveyard) seeming to branch off from the four-piece Big Kizz, which may or may not still be a band, but in which they featured together.

For It’s Time To… — the title hinting at the urgency of songs like “Watch You Go Wild” or “Dark Eyes” and some of the directionless anxiety of it being time for something and you don’t know what — they’ve brought in Niklas Gunnarson (also Dirty Burger and the exclamatory Oberheim!) to round out a power trio on bass, and together they give a resounding showcase of songwriting and close-to-no-frills performance,. Moments like the acoustic/electric blend of side-A-capping interlude “Änkasjön” and the layering of guitar parts in “Sacrifice” and various other flourishes keep it from being completely barebones in terms of presentation, but true to their pedigree in outfits that helped define vintage heavy rock as an aesthetic, Sjöberg and Hoyles aren’t trying to harness a massive, hyper-produced take.

Given the garage shove and shuffle of so much of the material throughout It’s Time To…, that makes sense. Starting off with “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” the lyrics of which are a socially conscious socioeconomic assessment/analysis that results in the seemingly inevitable conclusion, “You know the rich/Will have to die,” citing climate change, proxy wars, and disparity of wealth on the way in making its argument in maddeningly hooky fashion in just over three minutes. This kind of efficiency of purpose and this level of songwriting are the crux of It’s Time To…, though they leave politics behind as “Dark Eyes” picks up with an initial sweep of the lead guitar that has proved to be the difference afterward in several of Hoyles‘ past bands, be it Troubled Horse or Witchcraft; a distinctive scream of bluesy lead notes that feels like the Rolling Stones at points here without actually going there.

One might hear hints of Pentagram‘s “Be Forewarned” in “Dark Eyes,” but the two-and-a-half-minute “Watch You Go Wild” is more dug into early Britpunk — Hoyles was born in the UK, though that’s by no means a requisite for the influence — prefacing some of the tense boogie in the verse of the later “Invisible Man,” which lets loose in its chorus as one would hope. With Sjöberg ready on snare rolls from the outset, there’s a lot of back and forth between build-ups and straight-ahead runs, but The Population could hardly be accused of overdoing it in that regard when “Walking to Our Grave” works so decisively in an earliest-doom context, a melancholy behind the lines, “What happened to the sky?/It once was so blue/The sun shined bright/And we didn’t have a clue,” calling to mind a young David Bowie fronting Witchcraft ahead of a tempo kick after the second chorus.

Hoyles and Sjöberg, between the two of them, have been through enough in other groups that those lyrics could be about any number of their former bandmates, or it could be a relationship completely unrelated to music for all I know, but Hoyles sounds sincere in the telling, which is what matters. “Änkasjön,” which translates to English as ‘Widow Lake,’ follows, with gentler toms and the aforementioned acoustic strum backing an electric lead, evocative but brief in setting up the turn to “Sacrifice” as it ends with waves gently lapping a shoreline, perhaps of the lake in question. The latter is a strong open to side B as “Anthropocene/Anthropocide” was to the album as a whole, with its sonic fullness, loose-feeling swing and fuzz overload backing the guitar singing out during the chorus.

The subsequent trilogy of songs, “Treat Me Like a Dog,” “Invisible Man” and “Drive My Blues Away,” pull back some from proto-doom but feel related in their dejected-in-relationship theme, “Treat Me Like a Dog” arriving in Beatlesy stops complemented by snare march and warm bass groove before its rousing finishing section, not so dissimilar structurally from “Walking to Our Grave,” and setting up the brazen punker shine of “Invisible Man,” the song’s outsider position staked in the lyrics. Among the most particularly MC5 of the jams being kicked out, “Invisible Man” puts emphasis on the momentum The Population have built to this point, the bang-bang-bang nature of the procession through the album, which comes close twice to the four-minute mark — “Walking to Our Grave” and the closing Stooges-style take on Hawkwind‘s “Urban Guerrilla,” delivered with a strut that makes me think Hoyles and Mathew Bethancourt of Josiah could probably have a long conversation about the music they dig — but doesn’t touch it, and movement through the songs is no less a factor in the listening experience than the movement in the songs as “Drive My Blues Away” pushes back on some of the melancholy of the two songs prior and is a thematic if less first-daze-here companion to “Dark Eyes.”

Something of a closer in itself, “Downtown” seems to find the release that much of It’s Time To… has been searching for. Filled out by an additional layer of backing vocals, it’s a satisfying breakout of a conclusion that keeps the push from “Drive My Blues Away” going while reveling in the naked appeal of its hook. It caps with an engine revving, and if that’s them driving off to some next adventure or other, fair enough since The Population have basically been going since the test-strums and vocal wail that began “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” and have wanted nothing for a motoring sensibility even in their down or slower stretches. The inclusion of “Urban Guerrilla” is what puts the album over half an hour in terms of length, and I’d believe that filling out a 12″ LP runtime is part of why it’s there to begin with, but it’s in no way out of place, Sjöberg punctuating the stomp as Hoyles borders on frenetic in the shift from verse to chorus, taking off from there to a noisy solo section to finish out with consistency despite not having penned the piece originally.

When that band made their debut, Tee Pee Records got behind Big Kizz, and Hoyles‘ solo work has been through Bad Omen and Crusher Records, and given their pedigree, it’s easy to think The Population‘s first full-length could end up issued through any of them, but the self-release suits the purposefully-kept rougher edges of their approach, and while there are any number of avenues they might flesh out and continue to explore in terms of songwriting — aspects of garage, punk, doom, blues rock, and so on that might be fleshed out across future outings — what makes It’s Time To… work so well is the organic execution, the live energy, that comes through across the span. So long as they hold onto that, they can probably go wherever they want from here and not stumble in this past-born sound of now.

The Population, It’s Time To… (2023)

The Population on Facebook

The Population on Instagram

The Population on Bandcamp

I’ll be honest, a new Swedish duo releasing their first two-songer as a seven-inch probably is news around here most days, and I won’t pretend it’s not, but when that duo consists of guitarist/vocalist John Hoyles and drummer Axel Sjöberg, it’s worth taking a little extra note. The band is called The Population, and between the two players involved, it’s a pedigree that includes Spiders, Big Kizz, Witchcraft and Graveyard. So yes, in other words, significant. That was my point in the first place.

The two tracks, “Sacrifice” and “Anthropocene/Anthropocide,” both hover right around three minutes long, and you can decide for yourself which one is the victor as they duke it out for catchy supremacy. Neither of these cats is a stranger to boogie, of course, but there’s a Detroit-style (Stooges, MC5) thrust here especially in the second cut that speaks volumes of what they might do with a full-length. First of all, probably make it about 28 minutes long. Ha. We’d be lucky to have it.

No socials yet, just Bandcamp. That’s linked below, along with the stream of the song:

Come on and dig The Population!

The Population is John Hoyles and Axel Sjöberg. Two, by now, almost veterans in everything called rock’n’roll. They’ve always enjoyed each other’s friend- and musicianship throughout the years of touring together with different bands (Witchcraft and Graveyard) and also playing together in the early days of Spiders and John’s solo records.

They’ve chosen to present their new band with a brand new 7”, released by themselves. It’s pressed in an edition of 200, with a cover by Karin Lindgren. The two songs Sacrifice backed with Anthropocene/Anthropocide. Sacrifice is a classic classic heavy rock song, it has swinging guitar riffs, heavy drums, wild guitar solos and a slide that sounds like all the whales in the oceans were summoned to sing backing vocals. Anthropocene/Anthropocide is a faster, more energetic and punky song. It deals with the disgust you can feel for yourself and contemporary society.

The songs were recorded and mixed by Oskar Lindberg at Svenska Grammofonstudion. Expect more songs to be released from that session and live shows when the pandemic has come to an end. When the edition of 200 is sold out, the songs will be made available on the standard electronic platforms.

https://thepopulationgbg.bandcamp.com/

The Population, The Population 7″ (2020)