release date: Sep. 24, 2012
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,66]
producer: Efterklang
label: Rumraket / 4AD Records - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Hollow Mountain" - 2. "Apples" - 3. "Sedna" - 4. "Told to Be Fine" - 7. "Black Summer" - 10. "Monument"
4th studio album by Efterklang following 2½ years since the last album Magic Chairs (2010). Since that, Thomas Husmer left the band and Efterklang was then reduced to a trio consisting of vocalist and songwriter Casper Clausen, keyboardist Mads Brauer and bassist Rasmus Stolberg. German electronic musician Nils Frahm feature on tracks #1, #7, and #8.
Here the band take their style further into indie-pop territory but also explore a dream pop universe and more so leave some of the classical and art rock experiments somewhat behind. Before recording the album, the band went to the deserted arctic island of Spitsbergen, Norway, to make field recordings and by the use of senses gather up a natural source of sound structure that would eventually make a starting point and a foundation for their successive writing of songs for the album.
It's still unmistakably the sound of Efterklang with progressive song structures filled with rich organic textures and influences from ambient electronic but still with more focus on traditional song structure, and here and there (tracks #2-4, and #10) Casper Clausen makes me think of Matt Berninger of The National. I really enjoy this new-found blend of theirs and easily find it the band's so far best album.
[ allmusic.com, Under the Radar 4 / 5, đPopMatters 3,5 / 5, Drowned in Sound 4,5 / 5 stars ]
