release date: Oct. 4, 2013
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]
producer: Salem Al Fakir, Vincent Pontare, Magnus Lidehäll
label: Universal Music - nationality: Sweden
Track highlights: 2. "Jag lovar" - 3. "Hela huset" (feat. Håkan Hellström) - 4. "Va kvar" - 5. "Låtsas som det regnar" - 6. "Hädan efter" - 7. "Trädgården en fredag" - 10. "I min bil"
4th studio album by Veronica Maggio is produced by Salem Al Fakir, Vincent Pontare, and Magnus Lidehäll, who are also Maggio's primary co-composers. The album follows 2½ years after her fine Satan i gatan (Apr. 2011), and I'm actually not really 'nöjd' with / impressed by the result. "Sergels torg" is the first single, and it sounds unmistakably like Maggio but is not really a strong hit song and is just like... Okay. Håkan Hellström takes part on a single track... without really impressing. There is nothing new or distinctly different from her second studio album Och vinnaren är... from 2008, and it basically ends up sounding more like the continuation of the music from 2008 than a natural departure from her most recent outing. The style is predominantly traditional pop. And where, I think there were approaches to more original synthpop on the predecessor, something that added a better balance to Maggio's music - in between the sweet and energetic - but here it's only "Hädan efter", "Va kvar", and "Trädgården en fredag", which succeed in lifting this from the average and stand out as the best songs - they are also the most up-tempo tracks among many which tend to sound a little too similar. You may only wonder why producer and composer Christian Waltz from her 2011 album doesn't participate here at all, but that may also explain why it has a different sound. Criticism aside, Maggio is still such a talented artist that she glides weightlessly through the album's songs thanks to her very own original vocal and style - and the album is overall OK, but still nowhere near her best.
