release date: Nov. 24, 2017
format: vinyl / cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,66]
producer: Mahler & Bir (aka Christoffer Møller & Lars Skærbæk)
label: Universal - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Et forbehold eller to" - 2. "Achilles" - 3. "Et helt almindeligt liv" (4 / 5) - 4. "Ingen appel" (4 / 5) - 7. "Opvasken" - 9. "Mig og mine tanker"
3rd solo album by Søren Huss follows five years after his acclaimed Oppefra & ned (Oct. 2012) and two years after the come-back album by Saybia, No Sound From the Outside. The front cover already suggests that this is something else from the hands of Søren Huss, who has become associated with melancholic and introspective morose narration, but on this he reveals himself with a large amount of irony in a study of self-criticism, which also signals a strong contrast to his first two solo albums and their black and white front covers.
MidtlivsVisen is a play of words with the established expression 'Midlivskrise' [Midlife-crisis] combined with 'vise' [ballad] - suggesting a collection of songs that all connect thematically with midlife status, stories of current life - at this mature point in life, AND with the implication that it contains some kind of crisis.
Stylistically, it really isn't a long stretch from his 2012 album, it just seems like a much willed effort to meet the content of the album with other expectations and to view the songs from a more positive and lighter perspective. I deeply admire and enjoy the solo works by Huss, who has already established himself as on of the most important national singer / songwriters of a generation who has the ability to embrace and bond with the great songwriters and poets of traditional Danish literature and who still produce highly relevant contemporary music. At times he reminds me of the late troubadour Povl Dissing, at other times he comes closer to C.V. Jørgensen, but mostly he just sounds like no one else moulding an image of a modernist without obvious limitations.
My initial thoughts of the album were less positive than they quickly grew to be. MidtlivsVisen is a beautiful collection of warm and, yet melancholic ballads, exposing Søren Huss as a formidable lyricist and with that underlines that he is a strong contender to the title as the most significant contemporary Danish songwriter.
Recommended.
[ Gaffa.dk hands it 4 / 6, Soundvenue 5 / 6 stars ]
