Team Me – To the Treetops!

Oslo’s Team Me are overblown, over-excitable and, with the release of debut To the Treetops!, soon-to-be over here. The warmth of your welcome will vary according to the degree to which you find giddily-joyous symphonic pop delectable or detestable: the former camp should start pinning up the bunting post haste, the latter are advised to keep a wide berth. Handclaps and group-chanted choruses abound, threaded through dizzying layers of bells, strings, keys and other musical miscellany.

Their songs are often gratifyingly complex, but rarely sound it on first encounter, with seven minute opener Riding My Bicycle (from Ragnvalsbekken to Sorkedalen) an instantly-arresting case in point. But when things are boiled down to simpler structures and shorter durations, the results are no less impressive: the delightfully unsubtle Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns bubbles over with candied energy, while tracks like Fool supply gratefully-received moments of calm. A potentially divisive, but supremely confident debut.