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Review: 'Huld, Hafdis'
'Variations'   


-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '8th February 2018'

Our Rating:
You can’t go wrong with a bit of Dolly Parton, can you? Hafdis’ take on ‘The Bargain Store’, which raises the curtain on this album of covers is fairly faithful, with a simple, uncluttered acoustic arrangement backing Huld’s lilting folksy vocal.

The trouble is, it soon becomes apparent that this is pretty much her thing. All of the songs are approached in more or less the same way: minimalist, acoustic-based instrumentation sits behind Hafdis’ singing. Don’t get me wrong: the musicianship is good, and her voice is nice – really, very nice.

But 13 nice folksy covers of songs does get a bit dull over time. Hearing s many familiar tunes – from Eurythmics’ ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ to Tina Turners’ ‘Simply the Best’ with the guts ripped out and replaced by delicately nuanced ponderousness – diminishes the effect after a time. None of the renditions is bad: there just isn’t any variety, which makes it all rather predictable. And the main trick with covers is that therre needs to be an element of surprise for them to really stand out.

And overcoming my extreme dislike of Queen is something I’m still not able to manage, even in the face of Huld’s delicate acoustic rendition, and sadly, Hafdis’ soft county-leaning acoustic rendition of Berlin’s ‘Take My Breath Away’ falls way short of the impact of the original. It’s nice and all, but sometimes, there’s just no trumping an original power ballad.

Huld’s takes on many of the songs is pleasant and different, but there simply aren’t enough variations to make this collection interesting.

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Huld, Hafdis - Variations