This is Next Stop: Horizons second album that sees them returning to their home town of Gothenburg from a spell in Germany where they helped write and perform the music that accompanied the play Das Kalte Herz.
So we are setting sail for the horizon looking for Something Rare And Something Fine. This is actually quite a soft undulating tune hoping for a decent swell to help it out of the harbour. Par Hagstrom and Jenny Roos' boy/girl vocals work well together even when they tell us they're going to get back, as does the restrained brass that shimmers like the sun on the sea.
Rain On Me is the album's real sou'wester as it's raining on them as a relationship falls to pieces and Par sounds like he's been lashed to the main brace again as the water rises all around him.
The Harbour, My Home is a quite lovely little love song as the ask you to meet them by the lights of the harbour. It's very sweet. I imagine they are meeting on the quay that has a statue of a group of workers and a dog rather than by the freight terminal.
The Sea Of... however has more of a feeling of dread for some storm ravaged port where the girls backing vocals really lift the song as a Baltic storm rages around them as they hold on and try to survive the storm.
A Heart Of Gold is the slowest song so far and is full of regret for lost love. It sounds like it should be played in a high ceiling-ed church with the voices rising up filling the space, just before the sounds of a glockenspiel ring out in the middle of the song as we keep soaring higher with them.
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Gonna Get It Back is the song that stands out for going somewhere a bit unexpected sounding like the more commercial end of Soft Machine and is a nice twist.
Strangely we get to The Beginning more than halfway through the album and for the first time Jenny takes the vocal lead in a very sparse song asking to be taken back.
The Wish continues much like the beginning a nice gentle song.
Talking Low, though, has an interesting percussive opening before the guy starts to tell us about his family and what the problem might be. We'll Whistle So, however, is a very sepulchral look at how they went too quickly; crashing upon the rocks and their relationship sinking as a result.
The album closes with the almost jaunty Ennui which isn't a cover of Lou Reed's song of the same name sadly. Is it all or nothing or is it just the end of a pretty cool album that is easy to listen to repeatedly as it slowly reveals more with each listen?
Next Stop: Horizon online
Tapete Records online
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