Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Kings of Convenience - Quiet Is The New Loud

Responsible for some kind of quiet music movement based on their album title, this was the Norwegian duo's debut album, released in 2001.    Consisting mainly of acoustic guitar and harmony-led songs, it's a highly melodic collection of songs.  Production is crisp and clear, which allows these songs to stand out and sound good in either winter or summer.  It opens slowly with Winning The Battle, Losing the War which has a nice electric guitar in the coda.  While it sounds very pretty a whole album of songs at this pace would seriously drag, so it's refreshing that Toxic Girl picks up the pace.  To a gentle, quiet trot rather than a sprint or anything.  An early highlight is I Don't Know What I Can Save You From, this and the following track Failure feature lovely, rolling acoustic guitar patterns.   Sometimes the album gets quite 'loungey' as on the soft shuffle Leaning Against The Wall and The Passenger.  Later on the album, Summer on the Westhill is almost impossibly pretty.

But really, if you like sumptuous harmonies and acoustic music, any of these tracks will work for you.  The album is very consistent across all 12 tracks, and a fine listen.

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