release date: May 19, 2017
format: vinyl 2 lp (gatefold) / digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
producer: Randall Dunn
label: Columbia Records - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "The Weightless" - 2. "...Like a Trance Like..." (4 / 5) - 3. "Nocturnal Creature" (feat. Emily Cripe) - 5. "Stor, langsom stjerne" - 7. "Life Took You for a Freq." (feat. Chelsea Wolfe) - 8. "K-141 Kursk"
8th studio album by Sort Sol released 16 years after the band's last studio album Snakecharmer from 2001 - an album that had come to represent the end of the band.
The vinyl edition contains a bonus track ("Forever Present" on the D-side played at 45rpm). Founding member, as well as one of the band's essential songwriters, Knud Odde left the band in the aftermath of the last studio album, which left the band to a trio for another three years during which they managed to release a soundtrack to the movie "Baby" (2003). Guitarist Lars Top-Galia then left the band in 2004; however, both vocalist Steen Jørgensen and drummer Tomas Ortved determinately refrained from putting an end to the band and they managed to shelve it for the following years, and then in 2010 Top-Galia returned and the trio began performing for live concerts and they have stayed together since then. Rumours about a forthcoming new studio album began circulating after the new reformation, but then as most people had written that idea off this album was released.
Naturally, the musical output has changed, but perhaps to a degree where old fans will find it hard to associate this newfound style with that of Sort Sol. Apparently, the band had followed the incident of the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk and its tragic end with all 118 crew members being killing, as the band was finishing the album Snakecharmer. Jørgensen and Top-Galia had both wanted to compose a song based on the last notes by the submarine's captain, Dmitri Kolesnikov, but they never found the surplus artistic energy at a time when the band members had seen its own end approaching. The composition "K-141 Kursk" lasts 10:29 mins and is an orchestrated ambient hymn and it appears as the central composition of the album.
The album consists of 8 tracks and has a running time exceeding 51 mins. with the end-track lasting more than 10 mins. All songs except two are credited Jørgensen and Top-Galia. "Nocturnal Creature" has lyrics by Emily Cripe, who also sings on the track and "Life Took You for a Freq." has lyrics and vocals by Chelsea Wolfe. The album is credited Jørgensen, Top-Galia and Ortved as only band members but it's recorded and produced using a bunch of additional musicians where producer Randall Dunn plays synths and electronics on all tracks, and Timm Mason handles keyboards, synths and programming on five compositions, and both seems vital to the end-product.
Stylistically, this is an electronic ambient, synthpop, and art rock album, which doesn't sound like any other album by Sort Sol. You may recognise Top-Galia's distorted guitar-picking, but other than that, you will probably only associate this with Sort Sol by the characteristic dark vocal of Steen Jørgensen.
The single "...Like a Trance Like..." was released a month prior to the album release, and it became a bit of a national radio hit. The album was met by positive reviews and the band was nominated "Best Release" at the 2017 Grammy Awards, where the band was handed an "Honorary Prize".
The album is a big positive surprise, which I find quite fine and easily bettering most of the band's earlier releases and basically placing it close to top 3 of all their studio albums.
[ collectors' item 'near mint' - from ~ €45,- ]
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