THE MAHARAJAS: Floor Killers LP (gatefold)

“In “Too Late to Repent”, the opening phrase “I drowned today in a lake full of tears” manifests the consistent emotional state of “Floor Killers”, which is Maharaja’s latest release. A compilation album with the subtitle “14 Moody Garage Gems From Their Moody Vault” and with songs taken from their entire career. Drowning in a lake full of tears is a significant understatement, rather the group is in an ocean full of unrequited love, relationships that have broken down, missed and more melancholy than a person can possibly bear. The person in question here is Jens Lindberg, who is the composer for twelve of the album’s fourteen songs. Lindberg’s songs are somewhere between Danish Lollipop’s “I Will Stay By Your Side” (1965) and Johnny Winter’s “Gone For Bad” (1965). What unites Lindberg, three Danish little boys and a tough Texar guitarist, in the examples just mentioned, is the real feeling of melancholy they convey. You can not get better grades.

Together with, for example, the 2014 album “Yesterday Always Knew” (Low Impact) – to take just one, of many, examples – “Floor Killers” shows more than anything else what an improbably complex combo The Maharajas is. Unlikely, because these four men have proven to have no musical boundaries whatsoever. Whether they play beer-soaked pub rock (“Sucked Into the Seventies”, 2010), grandiose merseybeat / powerpop (“Yesterday Always Knew”), nocturnal Star Club / Reeperbahn garage rock (You Can’t Beat Youth (2017), the song “We Come in Peace” (for God’s sake not believing in any such promises) or “Floor Killers” which is emotionally revealing are The Maharajas’ brilliant.

In addition to the fact that the group can be swinging tight, they also master the ability to hold back when needed. And it is not a completely obvious combination. They often thicken the atmosphere with nice organ and guitar loops and they dare to trust that their melodies hold, but so do Maharajas also have two superb songwriters in Jens Lindberg and Ulf Guttormsson. They both complement each other, but not only as songwriters but also as singers and they are best when they tackle the song together, as in “What We Had” and “Too Late to Repent”. But, two good singers are not enough, there is also Mathias Lilja, who is brilliant in the album’s darkest songs – “Goodbye Sunshine” and “Dead”.

The first-class music also includes initiated cover lyrics by Mike Stax and Måns P. Månsson, so while waiting for the next “real” album with The Maharajas, “Floor Killers” is a given purchase.”