No Tears - Heart Shaped Eyes (2023) Hi-Res

If you are familiar with the music of the infectious Swedish horror pop punk band The Dahmers, discovering that frontman Christoffer “Stoffe” Karlsson went solo to unleash his love of classic powerpop is something to get VERY excited about. The project is titled No Tears and I’ve loved each and every single that was teased this year. Further adding to the hype, I received a message from one of our Swedish followers. He owned an advance copy and confidently stated I was absolutely going to love this record. Now that Heart Shaped Eyes is out, I fully agree. What an insanely smooth, catchy and fun collection of power pop tunes.

Karlsson clearly set out to write A-side singles, and the trouble I have identifying a designated hit on Heart Shaped Eyes is saying something about the amount of hits je penned. The record opens with two highlights in Dreaming and I Wanna Be With You (Tonight) and closes on two songs that are its opposite and atypical to the sound of No Tears: the inhibited instrumental The Silence Is Speaking and a semi-acoustic country duet Without Your Love that is so well executed I wonder we can expect a country side-project from Karlsson next. Between these bookends, Heart Shaped Eyes turns out as a record that can easily be played alongside the recent records by Geoff Palmer and Kurt Baker – two artist who take an similarly broad perspective informed by classic powerpop, rock’n’roll and pop punk. Plenty to like, lots to love on this one.

I probably have said this before, but how awesome is it to reside in the same timeline as bands like Uni Boys, The Whiffs, The Rubs, The Speedways, and now No Tears? Heart Shaped Eyes is out now on Luftshott Records.