Kurvitz- thanks for this really detailed and technical description. I love stuff like this (even if I don't always understand it), it gives me new listening angles when hearing songs.
Right now, like .namnlös the album is too new, raw and emotional for me. I love it, but need more time with it for anything more descriptive than that. And I'm still working on my translations, bear with me.
coloursatnight
My first impression is that I LOVE it. I have long since embraced their more synth-y sound anyway, and maybe I was always going to love this album purely because we know it's the last, which definitely gives it a more emotional edge for everyone... but I don't think so. I have no idea where it will come in my favourite Kent album rankings when the dust has settled, but I can tell I'm going to be playing it on repeat for a very long time.
Also, I now reallywant some of Kurvitz's fancy headphones...
Det finns hål i allting, det är där lite ljus kommer in.
You live in the UK, right? With those rents you can just go back to your mum-dad-grandma, spare three months of rent and consult head-fi.com!Ursprungligen postat av dumblikeamoose
It's a much better investment than a car. Why drive when you can fly?
The album is really hard to listen to, though... isn't it? It's like: well produced pop, well-produced pop, watching my own life end, well-produced pop... It's a bit of a ride.
I've given the album a once over and my first impression is that it's fantastic! I'm so glad that they have delivered on the songs despite the terrible album artwork, which I can almost forgive them for now. DSNFA does start off a little shaky with some shouting children and sort of unravels at the end with "Gigi" (what is this song about and why is it named "Gigi"? Someone please explain!) and "Falska Profeter" (Kent being political again in the vein of "La Belle Epoque"), but "Den Sista Sången" ties off the ends very neatly.
Overall this is a really solid collection of pop songs with some beautiful melodies. IMO this is a definite improvement over "Tigerdrottningen", which I actually disliked except for "Skogarna" and thought that it would grow on me but it never did.
Preliminary favourites from DSNFA are "Den Vänstra Stranden" (the guitar solo sounds like a throwback from HH), "Nattpojken & Dagflickan" (beautiful duet), "Förlåtelsen", "Skyll Inte Ifrån Dig" and "Den Sista Sången".
Can't wait to hear some of these songs live in December!!
Senast redigerat av sakermanser den 2016-05-21 klockan 18:44.
Haha, not just the UK... in LONDON. I'd better start saving up now, it'll take a while...You live in the UK, right? With those rents you can just go back to your mum-dad-grandma, spare three months of rent and consult head-fi.com!
The album is really hard to listen to, though... isn't it? It's like: well produced pop, well-produced pop, watching my own life end, well-produced pop... It's a bit of a ride.
I actually am finding it extremely easy to listen to, but I think I'm in denial. Listening to Den Sista Sången nearly got me but I have fought off the impending emotional breakdown for now... it doesn't feel like it's "over" yet - I'm too excited about seeing them live again this autumn/winter! When reality finally hits me in Stockholm on December 17th it will NOT be pretty.
Hey, I agree! Although I wouldn't say I disliked it - I really like some of the songs off Tigerdrottningen (esp. Mirage, Svart Snö, Simmaren), but as a whole, I already know I like DSNFA better. Andromeda worried me slightly (yeah, the shouting children) because kent albums usually kick off with a really strong opener, but Tennsoldater quickly won me over and it's currently my favourite. That and Den Vänstra Stranden.
And... terrible artwork? I like it! I do enjoy a bit of death imagery, especially skulls. DOJD has some of my favourite kent artwork because of this (I actually have a tattoo of the DOJD skull I love it so much), and I cannot WAIT to spend more than I can afford at the merch stalls on the upcoming tour. *crosses fingers for skulls on EVERYTHING*
Det finns hål i allting, det är där lite ljus kommer in.
I agree with your previous comments kurvitz. There are several different treatments on all the vocals, which gives the album a lot of texture. But if you listen closely there are some songs where the vocal is quite straightforward, for example Förlåtelsen.
A my earlier comment hinted, this doesn't feel like a quick win album. I get the feeling that the production, the songs and everything else will reveal themselves over time. As complex pop goes though, it's a very good album. I'll probably comment more when I've listened to it a lot, then come back to it when the dust has settled a bit.
As for the artwork, it's just funny. If you can't have a joke and a laugh on your last album, when can you?
Senast redigerat av .namnlös den 2016-05-21 klockan 22:58.
I like Tigerdrottningen much better than this album, it's challenging but in the end I listened to it for months and always found sonething nice that didn't noticed earlier. This is a good pop album, with good melodies and warm vocals, but Tigerdrottningen, and Rod, are on another planet for my taste
Gulo Gulo lover forever!
Maybe my brilliance shining through
il disfattismo preserva l'integrità del setto nasale
In Memoriam
Long time board member, seldom poster…
I wasn’t sure what I would feel… what emotions I would have upon listening to the ‘last’ Kent album. As it is, Kent Då Som Nu För Alltid, isn’t/wasn’t available in the States nor on the U.S. itunes the day it was released so the only place I could hear it was on youtube – thankfully the kentchannel had posted audio of the entire album.
I was unsure of what to expect – having thoroughly loved Tigerdrottingen I was brimming with anticipation especially after seeing the incredibly powerful promo video.
In short - Kent Då Som Nu För Alltid hit me right in the gut with what I believe to be incredibly powerful, profound and yes.. tear jerking songs. The bookends – Andromeda & Sista Sangen (the latter followed by the brilliant Falska Profeter) took me back.. back to all of the emotions I’ve felt over the years as a fan, fanatic and keeper of the best musical secret I’ve experienced in my life…
- Watching MTV’s 120 minutes in 1998 and seeing/hearing “If you were here” and recording it with my vhs recorder… watching it over and over again and going the next day hunting all over town (Omaha) for Isola
- Discovering Hagnesta Hill at a Virgin Megastore in Denver Colorado and listening to it non-stop on the 8 hour drive back home
- Discovering Vapen & Ammunition at a Virgin Megastore in Chicago and once home, ordering the remainder of Kent’s back catalogue at that point
- Ordering Du & Jag Doden via Hotstuff and being giddy with excitement as I unwrapped the package and opening the black slip cover to reveal a masterpiece… driving around until I had listened to the entire album twice
- Ordering any Kent shirt, poster or other merch I could get my hands on via ebay or Hotstuff.
- Proudly wearing my Du & Jag era aqua blue Kent shirt to numerous concerts over the years – both at home and other locations around the U.S. and without fail having people comment on my shirt and saying how much they loved Isola – thus spurring conversations about the other albums with their response typically - “there’s more?!”.
o Meeting and having conversations with several bands who I was seeing about Kent: The Myriad (had a wonderful conversation with their late drummer who died later of cancer), Eisley and Future of Forestry – all of which cited Kent as huge influences
- Getting my second tattoo… a Du & Jag & Hjarta & Smarta EP inspired one
- Going to work at 2am to get online (I didn’t have a computer at home at the time) to try to purchase tickets for the Tillbaka Til Samtiden tour… ‘securing’ tickets but being unable to purchase them from the Swedish ticketmaster site – calling my credit card company in the middle of the night to see why my card would not work… to no avail – thus thwarting my plan to fly to Stockholm to see (finally) Kent live.
- Regretting living in an era of pre-pubescent and internet infancy – not knowing that Kent had indeed toured the U.S. during the Isola and Hagnesta Hill era – and missing out.
- Finding out that Kent was going to play a show in NYC at the Bowery Hotel in 2009… and if it wasn’t for the fact that I got married/on honeymoon at the SAME time – I would have flown to NYC and tried anything I could to gain admittance.
- Being moved to tears (sadness, melancholy and irrepressible joy) to this day by songs such as Klaparen, Den Doda Vinkeln, Chans, Whistle Song, Glider, T and Pa, Svarta Linjer, Var ar vi nu, Vintervila, and now Andromeda, Forlatelsen, & Den Sista Sangen
- Feeling like the only one that understands the enigmatic, gripping, icy, majestic, cryptic and mysterious harmonies and lyrics that seemed written just for my ears – even though I cannot understand them lyrically.
- Feeling like the keeper of a grand secret, a hidden gospel that is Kent’s music and feeling blessed to witness to friends, family and strangers about their greatness.
- Holding out hope upon hope that one day… Kent would indeed, grace our shores in the U.S. at least one more time so I could see them.. hope that was kept alive every time I read that they were recording here in NY or LA – thinking just MAYBE they would at least do A show in NYC or LA for U.S. Kent fans
- Wishing, dreaming that I could go to one of the final concerts… but with the purchase of a new house this year, moving, etc. – just not affordable
It’s been an amazing time in my life – the time that Kent music has influenced and infiltrated it (and will continue to do so in the days and years to come). I totally understand the way they are ending it all… who hasn’t in a weird way fantasized about planning their own funeral / funeral party and being able to actually be there for it? That’s what I feel like this is – not a funeral necessarily but a memorial – a (black) celebration in the fact that all good things come to an end. It’s quite moving to see them go out on their own terms and be able to share it with us. Brings to mind Tyrell’s line in Blade Runner.. “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly…”
I think this album captures it all elegantly. I only wish I could be there for the very end in December…
Great thoughts. Lots of us outside Sweden will agree with all of that. Well said!
I think I'll save my own thoughts for later in the year, but nonetheless it's great to hear everyone elses story.
Kent like to surprise. News shouldn't get out before 2017. Also, there's no need to distract from their final countdown ;-)
I'm pretty bad at writing reviews, although I did it for my article and will be online in the near days.
That means that once I wrote it, all my ideas are escaped.
All I can say is that it's a Joakim Berg solo album there on the writting! Why hadn't Martin written songs with him? Just a question. I will not complain about Jocke, the master of music, because he can do everything he wants, it'll be awesome at 99% chances....
This album has got a lot of contrasts, such as radio sounds rubbish rythm and styles like in "Nattpojken&Dagflickan" this clapping hands groove and back tune in the beginning is used for "lover songs" in France, from Guadeloupe and black seducers :/ Like zouk ballads, if you know what I mean?
Everybody will think of the album is a different way from each country we're from!
The album has for inferno loops that will get stuck in your head, some songs are very powerful in the music, some are emotional. The work given is amazing and very complete and diverse. Very raffined writting is something we can't deny. It's a multi detailed layered album!
⚜ ! Jag är en FF och jag älskar Kent ! ⚜
Just wanted to reinstate how fucking good this album is. It takes all the strengths of their last three albums to their natural conclusions, while correcting all their mistakes. Gone is the emotional and rhythmic constipation of Tigerdrottningen and JÄIRFM. The percussion moves, bounces, the sentiment is clear and flowing. The guitars are finally and flawlessly integrated into their end-of-career sound. Sami really figured it out here. Every track has ephemerial guitar patterns in there, wayfaring from left to right in the mix, really rhythmic stuff, but also immensely light and atmospheric. An unexpected marriage, I would say, of their guitar instincts with 2010s pop sound. MUCH better done than 999 or Jag Ser Dig -- classic Americana guitar songs sitting in an otherwise rigidly electronic tracklist.
Also, Jocke is very, very good on this. One moment his vocals are wary and thin like his voice has become since 2013 -- he first sounded like this on Igen Kunde Röra Oss, almost like he's about to cry; here the beginning of Andromeda has that same vocal -- the next he dresses himself in other-worldly perfection, like Den Värnstra Stranden. I think it's a really nice balance of technology prolonging the inevitable wearing out of nature. The melodies too are dynamic again. I think "Ruta 1" is a good example of how Jocke's melodies started getting stale, circular, went nowhere. Their take on R&B rhythm just wasn't propelling that song and it's kind either, a two-fold standstill then. Skyll Inte Ifran Dig is the same type of song, only it sounds freed. Hear how the percussion bounces and moves from left to right, tight and organic. And the melody takes turns and ends up in places.
A word or two has to be said about how monumentally sad the melodies on this album are. All "pretty" melodies are sad, but here they're simply beautiful, like flowers lining a casket. Even Nattpojken is permeated with this, just under the sunny surface. It could be said a melody is as good as it is sad. Take into count that a purely minor key melody doesn't come off as sad but depressing to a median human being. Sadness I think comes from a good mix of minor and major, good drops from one chord to another, from observing the labyrinth of the melody take a great, relief- or grief-stricken turn like one's life can. The melodies here really exemplify that. If someone wants to study a collection of music to become a better melodist (that word exists, by the way
The most pleasantly surprising sonic element here is the maturing of En Plats I Solen elements. At the time I thought that album will be an afterthought. Turns out it had some good evolutionary traits, mostly it's lightness in the form of acoustic guitars mixed with treble range electronics. Förlatelsen has the same guitar and delicate electronics balance as Ensam Lang Vag Hem and Team Building, but, again, on a much higher level. God that's a dynamic song, a real perpetuum mobile, sounds like it's never gonna falter. A lot of that EPIS sparkle and lightness has found it's way here, also exercising the leaden spirit of their last two albums. Lightness and sparkle are the same thing for a pop mix, because they both come from trebble details. The small, sparkling mountaintops of individual sounds give an impression of air between instruments, lend lightness and movement to choruses etc. The mastering on Da Som Ny För Alltid is, I think, their very best too. It sounds even better to me now (this may change, of course) than Hagnesta Hill. The treble airiness is offset my massive sub-bass that keeps everything grounded. (Too much treble can make songs sound thin and tinny). Tennsoldater is a great example of wonderful bass and wide soundstage, one of the best sounding songs I have ever had the pleasure to hear. The bass is huge but so, so fast...
After five days in its company, I am at a loss to find a weakness in DSNFA. At first I was sure it would be Nattpojken, but that's a much needed breather. Of course, it usually takes about a year for me to really understand where their last effort lies in the larger framework. So five days are nothing. But the last kent album that had this sort of honeymoon effect on me was Röd. I am suddenly reminded how I pretty much fall in love with great kent albums. I think doubt is central to the emotion of falling in love. The first time you fall in love you question it: is this it? Is this the falling in love I've been hearing about? The fifth or last time that doubt is still there at the onset: oh! is it happening again? The question "Am I in love?" is central to being "in love". It's the same doubt for me with truly special albums I'm capable of falling for. After the morning coffee I put the record on with shaky hands thinking: c'mon, don't turn into an illusion, please, come to life ghost... And so it is with Da Som Ny För Alltid. I fear it will turn into a usual piece of music every day I put it on, but it never does. It flows like very thin fabric.
And Sista Sangen has the greatest middle eight in music history. The middle eight is a very elusive and often misunderstood part of the songhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty...m#Middle_eight A radically different part of the song somewhere in it's middle or end. That part of Sista Sangen feels like the floor dropped from underneath my feet. Makes me see shit. Shit you can't write about on the internet. Shit gets taken away from me. I have yet to find a passage of music that more effectively makes people cry their eyes out than this either. It's fucking Pavlovian, but in every way conceivable that isn't cheap. It's earned. By the 13 albums proceeding it, out of which 8 were masterpieces. It's somewhere between the absolute best choir rendition of Perotinus' "Deploration Sur La Mort D'ockeghem" and that 2006 Paris Hilton single "Stars Are Blind" that was way too good for what it was.
And best of all (thank god) no song uses the "knife-sharpening" cymbal effect of Columbus and (unfortunately) some other late career kent songs.
Oh and how good is the one-two of Vi Är Inte Längra Da and Färlatelsen? They're like two great long car drives in a row, on a summer somewhere.
On the other hand, Da Som Ny För Alltid has some of the most downright defeated lyrics I've ever heard. I'm the kind of guy who thinks "Pornography" is a cool little rock n roll album and "The Holy Bible" has a nice spring-timey youth feeling. In the last 15 years of listening to kent, I've also picked up the skill to understand what Jocke says in his round, impossibly soft kitty-cat pronunciation (along with a basic understanding of swedish) and these ringers really stand out:
"There is no grace, empathy or forgiveness in reality"
"Everything in my world broke. And now in the end I lose you. I have lost. Everything is lost."
"Our real sin is that we allow ourselves to believe"
Senast redigerat av Kurvitz den 2016-05-26 klockan 01:06.
Wow that's a really interesting review and it shows how differently we all listen to albums. I for example loved Ruta 1 as probably my 3rd favourite song from Jag Ar Inte.... despite hating R&B and seeing that song as sounding closer to dream and synth pop mixed together. We all notice different things and hear the same thing a bit differently (or very different if you see The Holy Bible as a spring album :P ).
I found Tigerdrottningen to be a very cohesive album (minus Din enda van which sounds like it'd fit better on this album) and though it is a bit over-emotional which I never noticed till that review, it just has four songs that stick out for me the way nothing on this album has yet (Mirage, La Belle Epoque, and the closing two). This one's more of a pleasant and serene listen and probably better as a last album but I'll definetely have to pay more attention to stuff like the bass on Tennsoldater, maybe it's more of a speaker album and I generally listen on earphones or headphones.
reddit.com/r/UKbands
I'm still in processing mode about the album, but I just wanted to say I absolutely admire/love/am in awe about the eloquent way you can describe this. Yoi write about the album being a starting point for melodist, well... your 'review' is an equal starting point for any person wanting to write a good review about an album.
Your review makes me understand the record better, it makes me listen to it differently, it makes me chase more deeply for more details, it teaches me a few things as well, and it has got great references. And you absolutely nailed what is for me the key element of why I love Kent music: that difficult to describe mix of uplifting sadness and happy melancholy.
And for your info: The Holy Bible to me is an upbeat album filled with positive youth anger, who does not want to shout out loud 'I know I believe in nothing, but it is my nothing' with some sort of smile behind his ears.
Great review, great album.
Wow, heh, thank you.
I'm also surprised (and at the same time not surprised) at how many people here know The Holy Bible. I've always seen the Manics as a sister/brother phenomenon to Kent. There are so many mirrored themes and common histories involved, as I've stated somewhere in another thread here, like both being closely knit groups of kids from a spökstadt of their country, leftists, etc. I would really, really like to hear what they think of each other, but strangely enough -- like penguins and polar bears -- they never seem to meet in the same breath
After my post -- and reading the concerns here -- I started to nitpick on DSNFA, and this is what I came up with as possible weaknesses:
1) I would appreciate more instrumental breathers. The few purely instrumental moments here are such surges of beauty. Sista Sangen's end guitar solo, Vi Är Inte Länge's post-chorus instrumental, even the brief end of Andromeda. I could definitely do without the last chorus of Vänstra Stranden and an instrumental instead of that. This is a mistake they started to make on the final albums: a reduntant third chorus. All these songs could have done with an instrumental instead: Columbus, Hjärta, Vänstra Stranden, Isis & Bast. (I shudder to think how awesome a Hansyn style eastern tinged ending would have been for I&B... what their boundless imaginations could have come up with, instead of a repeat of the chorus)
2) The large, 5 minute plus songs are so substantial. Förlatelsen, Falska Profeter, Vi Är Inte Längra Dar all have beautiful end chants and breathing room in instrumentals, great winding structures where at the same time, nothing is redundant. This makes me wonder if maybe the opening one-two-three is a bit too light in comparison? This may turn out to be that rare album where the second half is better. I've certainly focused on that more than the opening, although it is undoubtedly a snappy opening. But...
3) Maybe Andromeda is just a bit too usual? Emotionally it has great moments, like the verses where for once you just hear this regular human being sing. But it's a bit light on textures and discoveries for an opener, no? Also, very similar to the opener Jocke wrote for Petra Marklund's "Ensam Inte Stark" (by that same name). Andromeda is a better, more profound incarnation if that song. But Kent usually throw a thick forest of details in there, like Mirage or 400 Slag, so that you always have something new to discover, when you come back. Here the forest gets thicker the further you get into it. On the other hand, maybe it's a nice structural trick? The first four songs are a hit driven EP, then VÄILD begins a long drive to the end. This remains to be seen.
Senast redigerat av Kurvitz den 2016-05-26 klockan 21:50.
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