Payphones is a garage rock & roll band from Norway, featuring Eirik Slinning Korsnes (guitar, vocals, piano), Rigmor Hanken (bass), and Kjartan Magerøy Aarseth (drums)—you might know them from last year’s Garage Punk Bergen compilation (its opener, Mind Control, is included here in a live version as the closing track). Wrong Number is their full-length debut album, born from the idea of playing fast and noisy music you can dance to. They succeed with flying colors, like a souped-up version of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
The nine original songs here tap into a warped world of misfired connections, unhinged desire, and the chaotic thrill of chasing someone who probably shouldn’t pick up the phone: “Well I dialed and you picked up // And that’s where we’re at now.” Across tales of head-losing infatuation, creepy cold calls, swaggering ego trips, and toxic power plays, the musicians lean into dark humor and groovy grit to expose obsession at its most unromantic. And yet, it’s wild and delightfully off-kilter boogie & blues that will shake any venue.
Wrong Number, recorded and mixed by Dan Cox, is out now digitally through Møllendal Records.
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