Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.02.2013, Blaðsíða 22

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MUSIC
Album Reviews
My Bubba and Mi
Ylja
Svavar Knútur
Wild & You
2012
www.mybubbaandmi.com
Sugary sweetness for your tea
Ylja
2012
www.facebook.com/yljaiceland
Earth Child Folk without the whimsy
Ölduslóð
2012
www.svavarknutur.com
A nice companion to long
winter nights
‘Wild & You,’ the latest output from
Swedish/Icelandic bluegrass duo My
Bubba and Mi, takes the form of a five-
track EP consisting of their trademark
old-timey-with-a-dash-of-sugar stuff.
Their saccharine voices and twanging
strings give it a down to earth vibe. With
many more of the tracks, the album could
verge on too-too sweet, but at this length
it is manageable.
If you shut your eyes and listen, you
can travel to a place which probably only
exists in popular clichés of the American
south: Wind stirring tall grass, an old
jalopy put-putting down the road and a
toothless hillbilly sweeping his porch in
low, slanting sunlight. Clichéd imagery
and all, the album nonetheless makes
for a good listen. - BERGRÚN ANNA
HALLSTEINSDÓTTIR
In our quick fire digital music world, the
concept of using album art as a primer to
a band’s music seems quaint, even alien,
to many people. So hats off to trio Ylja for
producing a magnificent cover. Harking
back to those classic ‘60s/early ‘70s UK
folk albums, it opens up like a double
gatefold showing the band standing on a
grassy hillside. The sun-filtered photos of
the band on the other side connect their
music to the feeling of wind in your face
and grass under your feet.
Their music, a mix of folk sounds
with the odd country twang, has a rustic
simplicity. Tracks such as “Óður Til
Móður” and “Á Rauðum Sandi” contain
an earthiness with well-picked guitars
complemented by the breathy yet strong
vocal harmonies. But there are too many
“Dun-dun-dun-duns,” “Shooby-doooby-
dum-dums” and “Aæ-Aæ-Aæs.” Folk
and country should be more about telling
stories through lyrics instead of vocal
stylings. But for a debut album that nails
what the band and their sound are about,
this is definitely a very strong showing.
- BOB CLUNESS
Despite (or perhaps because of) his
sometimes aching sentimentality,
Svavar Knútur is one of the more able
English language lyricists in Iceland.
He is no slouch in Icelandic either,
and here he combines the two. He
sort of says it plain on opener “Baby,
Would You Marry Me,” followed by, of
all things, a Bloodhound Gang quote
on “While The World Burns.” The
romanticism continues in Icelandic
on “Emma,” leading on to one of
the albums highlights, the title cut
‘Ölduslóð.’ The outside world is cold
and distant, Svavar’s voice is warm and
inviting, the sparse instrumentation
fragile but proficient, and in the end,
love is all that matters and shelter can
be found in each other’s arms.
- VALUR GUNNARSSON
Jónas Sigurðsson og
Lúðrasveit Þorlákshafnar
Þar sem himinn ber við haf
2012
www.jonassigurdsson.com
Sailors are back in vogue!
Jónas knows how to open albums in a
kick-ass manner and “Hafsins Hetjur”
(“Heroes of the Sea”) is no exception.
The co-credited “Horn Blowers of
Þorlákshöfn” sound like a ‘70s funk
band on lýsi (“cod liver oil”). They bump
and grind their way through this ode
to drowning sailors. 2012 was the year
that sailors came back into vogue, with
Baltasar Kormákur’s film ‘The Deep’
and a documentary called ‘The Swim,’
about heroic swimmers. Perhaps we are
turning to our most traditional roles after
the economic crash. In any case, Jónas
followed his last greatest album, ‘Allt Er
Eitthvað.’ with this one about the sea, the
second track, “Hafið Er Svart,” (“The Sea
is Black”), a hauntingly beautiful song
about sailors drowning
Heading out to sea is indeed a
recurring motif, as in fact it was in the first
Icelandic rock songs of the Beatles era.
On the fifth track, he seems to attempt
to write a traditional sailor song, even
utilising a choir of senior citizens.
- VALUR GUNNARSSON
Þórir Georg
I Will Die And You Will Die
And It Will Be Alright
2012
http://thorirgeorg.tumblr.com
Cold comforts/gritty truths
‘I Will Die And You Will Die And It Will
Be Alright’ reflects a world riddled with
cold comforts. Singer/songwriter Þórir
Georg uses the chanted title track as a
clear-cut thesis statement: Eat, drink and
be merry, for tomorrow we might die. But
at least there’s a chance we might go out
choking on cake.
Even with an emotional cloud over
the slacker folk album, the musician
manages a melancholy optimism. “If
there is a God I hope he is more than
what we talked about,” Georg sings with
a heart-crushing sincerity on “Thrive.”
Unlike the average poet with a guitar
(Read: emo), Georg is unafraid to take
a crooked path, dipping into a bag
of tricks—including flat-footed vocal
phrasing and liberal use of feedback—
that points to his previous life as a
hardcore punk.
While occasionally he takes a wrong
turn and finds himself dead-ended by a
trite phrase (“You Can Lead A Horse To
Water But You Can’t Make It Drink”) his
sense of honesty more or less supersedes
the need to paint a pretty picture.
- LAURA STUDARUS
Beneath
Enslaved By Fear
2012
www.beneath.is
As far as plus/minus ratings go, this
one is in the upper echelons
Anything Beneath touches oozes
experience and focus. When they have
something new out, people get anxious.
Will they put everyone else to shame? Will
they top their previous outputs? These
are all relevant questions befitting a band
of Beneath’s stature.
‘Enslaved By Fear’ is relentless. This
modern death metal cacophony is laced
with nuances, a persuasion for melody
and a barrage of riffs that dazzle yet
sometimes irk. The triggered drumming
boggles. The smorgasbord of riffs is
baffling, but the execution impresses.
I particularly like the guitar tone,
which is “earthy” in contrast to many
bands of similar ilk. It also bears rare but
organic gaffes not typically accepted in
an over-produced genre. It sounds like a
progressive war machine on the offensive
against religion.
If you’re not easily fatigued by
extreme, brutal, grim, heavy and fast
music, you'll be creaming your pants.
Apart from the excellent title track and
"Monolith," shaving some of the tremolo
picking and blasting snare and kick-
drums off the tracks would have made
this one even stronger.
- BIRKIR FJALAR VIÐARSSON
22The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 2 — 2013