release date: Nov. 15, 2011
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,88]
producer: Korallreven
label: Acéphale Records - nationality: Sweden
Track highlights: 1. "As Young as Yesterday" - 3. "The Truest Faith" - 4. "Keep Your Eyes Shut" - 6. "Comin' Closer" - 8. "Honey Mine"
Studio album debut by Swedish synthpop duo, Korallreven, consisting of keyboardist Daniel Tjäder (The Radio Dept.) and vocalist Marcus Joons. The album contains ten compositions of which at least four previously released singles are included (tracks #1, #3, #5, #8).
Musically, it's a long way from the music by The Radio Dept., which may explain why Tjäder would eventually leave that band in 2015 to concentrate on his duo with Joons.
The album was met by positive reviews but also some negative ones. Basically, it's not music of my taste. Once in a while, there's a unique song structure with chorus-lines and verses, but generally, there's simply too much ambient and trance inspiration going on with keyboards doing simple spherical loops and imitations of whale sounds. And then there's a lot of self-reproduction at stake. The first, and also best, track on the album has the verse-line "Sa Sa Samoa", which then is not only the title of the following song but also has some of the same synth structures - only as a bolder work-around instrumental composition. The album contains glimpses of qualities that you will find much better elaborated by The Knife, and the real downside is that there are too many songs that sound like elevator-muzak ("Sa Sa Samoa", "Pago Pago", "A Surf on Endorphins", and "Comin' Down") to my ears.
