release date: 1991
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Lars Alsing, Lars Muhl
label: RCA / BMG Ariola - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 3. "How Many Teardrops Must Fall" - 4. "Elevator" - 5. "Two Hearts Are Better Than One" - 8. "When Angels Fall" - 11. "Gi' mig en chance"
3rd studio album by Lars Muhl following three years after King of Croon (Apr. 1988) sees Muhl in collaboration with guitarist Lars Alsing. Muhl has certainly stepped up in terms of label backing going from small Fox Records to a major international label. However, fact is that he didn't sell a lot of albums. His first two solo releases had been met by open arms, but mainly from music critics and other musicians. He was a darling of the press and of the industry but still had to prove his worth as a hit maker of albums. Yes, Lars Muhl had been involved in hit songs all over Scandinavia, but mainly as songwriter and composer of music for others. It seemed he still struggled in finding his very own original expression. His first album out was a turn to pop crooner, something he elaborated on the follow-up, which put him somewhere in a strange category where people would associate his music with David Bowie on one side of the spectre and via his crooner appeal - also with Bing Crosby.
Anyway, When Angels Fall wasn't the commercial breakthrough many expected would come, sooner or later, because fact is, Muhl was a highly estimated artist. His name had become a guarantee stamp for quality and hit song potential. The album is, however, strangely anonymous. It's pop, but where King of Croon also contained synth pop with a grandiose Phil Spector-like production, this one comes short on most parameters. Muhl wants hard to present hit songs but the album feels like a move in the wrong direction. The front cover depicts Muhl with flowers in his arms as hints to Morrissey and his ability to write ballads and romantic love songs all while posing casually dressed with a cigarette in hand, as if not going all the way, or being both sincere and yet half-hearted, and that sort of fits the music here more precisely than desired, I guess. When Angels Fall attempts to be a soft, romantic affair but the central actor appears detached, and where does this put the artist, Lars Muhl? He's even stronger placed in nowhere land, or on his private isolated island. The songs point in many directions. Some are slow blue-eyed ballads, others are uptempo and club-like rockers delivered with a sneer, he knows so well from inspirational sources like Joe Jackson and Costello, but that influence simply don't fit the production or the remaining material. It seems, he still wants to break out as an international artist, who can do whatever he feels like, and get away with it. The big difference is that Costello don't sell or signal romantic love songs, and Lars Muhl just seems unable to choose which scene to play on. And then, he's not David Bowie or up there where you are actually able to pull that ambiguity off.
Worst of all, not only didn't the album provide any hits, nor did it sell that many copies, now with another commercial failure, more critics turned against his artistic profile with some referring to his singing style as whimping and whining, as a clear contrast to that of crooning. Still, Lars Muhl holds a position as an artist with great potential, but the troublesome musical career hasn't exactly welcomed him with open arms, and instead of living life in the capital or in his home town of Aarhus, he has now moved to the small island of Samsø, which could be seen as one of the first signs of not being able to fit in. He still seeks artistic recognition and a musical career and at the same time he isolates himself.
When Angels Fall is Muhl's so far least appealing album. It contains good songs and music, but overall, it's a bit of a mess and it feels half-hearted.
