Just in time to kick off summer, Helsinki, Finland’s daydreaming pop tunesmiths, TEINI-PÄÄ, return with a four-track EP that’s on assignment to swallow your insecurities and your anxieties, and spit them back to the world in bubbles of carefree elation and effervescent romantic charm. At the end of the day, the reason we are drawn to the music that sticks with us, is because it moves us and strikes an emotional response that tickles our chemicals in a way that we want to keep coming back over, and over, and over, chasing the initial high. The way that “Mietin Minne Meet” washes along the break between tight and clean, upbeat indiepop melancholia and a nostalgic power-pop-punk sound — that is specifically Scandinavian in its nuance here — brings me back to that heart-in-throat wonderment I felt the first time I heard (and fell in love with) TEINI-PÄÄ’s tunes. Lyrically the record spends most of its time in its own head, trying to work through some shit — which makes a whole lot of sense when you learn that the band name translates to “Teen Head” — and Renata Rojo’s artwork reflects this theme flawlessly.
