Northern Portrait will release a new album, "Criminal Art Lovers" in December. Photo courtesy of Matinee Recordings.

Singer and songwriter Stefan Larsen once claimed in an interview that if the Danish soda Tuborg Squash were exported, it’d become such a success that it would beat Coca Cola any day.  As his indie pop band Northern Portrait prepares to release its first album “Criminal Art Lovers” in December, we can only wonder if their music has the same potential.

The Copenhagen-based five-person band started in the summer of 2007 in hopes of creating sophisticated, guitar-based indie pop, and soon after signed with the indie label Matinée Recordings. In 2008, Northern Portrait released two EPs: “The Fallen Aristocracy” and “Napoleon Sweetheart,” which were successful enough that this summer the band performed in several music festivals in Europe and the U.S.

The band’s songs couple several jangly, 80s pop-style guitars playing catchy, light-hearted tunes with Larsen’s mellow, melancholic voice discussing themes ranging from materialism to dissatisfaction with modern life. The preview tracks from “Criminal Art Lovers” sound promising, continuing the band’s track record of easygoing tunes.

Although critics commented on how the songs from the first two EPs sounded much like those of the 80s English rock band, The Smiths, in the preview tracks of “Criminal Art Lovers” Northern Portrait shows development towards a more personal flavor. With an increased emphasis on guitars and engaging bass lines rather than vocals, songs like “When Goodness Falls,” “Criminal Art Lovers” and “The Operation Worked But the Patient Died” will please new and old fans alike with music reminiscent of brisk autumn afternoons.

To listen to the preview tracks for “Criminal Art Lovers”, click here.