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Look out Snow Patrol, Coldplay and Kasabian…you’ve got big competition.
There are four people (obviously) in Norway’s Alexandria Quartet – Martin Skalnes, Oystein Braut, Chris Holm and Kim Age Furuhaug. They’ve moved from their hometown of Bergen to the east end of London to get their burgeoning career up-and-running.
This is their debut and it’s very impressive – indeed. It’s taken some 18 months to get it right, and it’s been worth it.
Singer Martin is a dead ringer for Rufus Wainwright who can also switch to sounding like Turin Brakes’ Ollie Knights. Also, it seems, TAQ have the same ambitions, musically, to match Wainwright’s grandness fused with urban folk-pop and U2’s stadium rock vision.
This is epitomised by the string arrangement that opens The Dark Side Of The Blues their debut single which turns into a stomping pop-rocker that draws on the bluesier elements of rock.
In contrast, I Need Someone To Love, is a sharp ballad that builds into a magnificent mini-opus. The key to the success of this is the attention to detail instrumentally, featuring a sizzling guitar solo.
Into The Light is an out-and-out attempt to impress even more, as if we haven’t been so far. The piano (Skalnes) and drums (Furuhaug) provide the hook with Braut providing the economical Byrds-like jangly guitar.
Somewhere is a whopping, mature ballad. Again some gorgeous piano leads the way, followed by strings and some understated Pink Floyd guitar fused with shades of country, whereas Get Lost In The City echoes the popier side of Turin Brakes with some stylish and edgy guitar interludes. Arguably the best track on the album – You Could Be My Mirror – is the sort of song I expected Coldplay to deliver at sometime in their career, but never arrived. It has enough stadium rock appeal with huge sounding riffs and a cool pop edge with sumptuous guitar breaks.
Wainwright’s shadow looms large on the piano lead ballad Ace Upon The Sleeve providing the collection with a touch of sophistication. It would have slotted perfectly onto his Want Two.
Once again the stadium rock flavour returns on the thrusting Justine, and on first listen, could actually be U2 because of the reverbed riffs.
And finally. A Monster’s Lullaby is a mini-masterpiece. This gentle Beatles-esque ballad (Macca would love this) is the song which showcases their collective and individual talents. Its starts slowly, building (with masses of strings) into one mother of a crescendo, and a fitting way to close a really, really classy album.
The verdict: One of the most promising bands of 2009. Love them.
1. The Dark Side Of The Blues
2. I Need Someone To Love
3. Into The Light
4. Somewhere
5. Get Lost In The City
6. You Could Be My Mirror
7. Montauk
8. Ace Upon The Sleeve
9. Justine
10. Leaving You With Music
11. A Monster’s Lullaby
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
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Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.