Band Killed In Sweden Car Crash Have Posthumous No. 1 Album

Indie band Viola Beach has topped the U.K. album chart, almost six months after all the group’s members were killed in a car accident in Sweden.

The Official Charts Company said Friday that the group’s self-titled debut album was the week’s best-seller.

The four members of the band from northwest England died along with their manager when their car plunged into a canal outside Stockholm in February.

The musicians’ families thanked fans for ensuring that “what they will be remembered for, forever, is the music they were so passionate about making together.”

(click on image for complete album cover)

Martin Talbot, chief executive of the chart-compiling company, said “it is hard to think of an album which more people were rooting for than the Viola Beach release – nor a success which has felt so bittersweet.”