Swedish music has never had it so good and the latest Scandinavian attack on the British charts comes courtesy of Amandine and their debut ep ‘Waiting For The Light To Find Us’.
Bittersweet, emotive and openly honest, theirs is a collection of six tracks that serves well to express the bands reflective ideology and American folk inspirations and influences. The opening track ‘Wake’ is probably their best, using piano to great effect as a floating accompaniment to Olaf Gidlof’s painfully sentimental lyrics and vocals.
‘Waiting For The Light To Find Us’ is as musically expressive, affecting and straight from the heart as it is lyrically. Vocally however, despite Gidlof’s beautiful and at times draining voice it’s rather rigid…or maybe it’s just consistently distinctive. All this said, ‘Sparrow’ provides a break from the norm, with gypsy accordion, call and answer harmonies and a more challenging vocal complete with climax and post coital piano.
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‘Between What He’s Saying And What He Regrets’ closes ‘Waiting For The Light To Find Us’ and combines piercing, chilling violin, solid piano and picked banjo with a limited vocal part that speaks volumes through it’s minimalism. All in all a great effort, distinctive, consistent, sincere and so from the heart it could bring a tear to your eyes.
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