Electric Boys

The Ghost Ward Diaries mighty music Swedish funk-o-metal mainstays’ freewheeling sixth.

Stockholm’s Electric Boys were always glam-metal’s odd men out: less pansticked 80s clowns, more Hendrix-loving 60s starchildren. Having sensibly sat out the grunge wars, they returned in 2009 sounding even better than they did first time around.

The Ghost Ward Diaries wears its class on its billowing silk sleeves. Opening track Hungover In Hannover is cleverer and catchier than its dunderheaded title suggests, while There She Goes Again is a big, Beatles-reimagined-as-arena-rock anthem. There are mis-steps – mainman Conny Bloom’s love of old-school funk doesn’t always translate into great songs, as the lead-footed Love Is A Funny Feeling proves. But that’s the exception rather than rule, and the Electric Boys’ charge remains defiantly positive.