Sub Pop
Released: February 6, 2007
Emil Svanängen (aka Sweden’s Loney, Dear) is a complete pro in the art of home recording. Almost entirely alone he has created a pop orchestra of guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, saxophone, clarinet, etc. The arrangements themselves are stunning, like a peppier, glossier, more compact little brother of the Microphones the Glow Pt. 2. Here there is something for nearly everyone. You like vocal substance with falsettos, tenors, and whistles butting heads? Check. How about bubbling keyboards that rest just above the surface, lightly breathing sweet sentiments into your ears? Right here. And finally, do you like Belle and Sebastian? Ya? Buy this.
As for the merit of the songs themselves, Loney, Noir hits the bulls-eye a couple times, while being overly precious and too earnest on other occasions. “I Am John” represents the finest track on the album as well as being one of the best pop singles in years, the music growing exponentially until there are so many vocal parts your head spins from overindulgence. Creating greatness with the little details – a single drum roll at the 2:57 mark, a barely audible, fuzzy keyboard rhythm Brian Eno would endorse – Svanängen knows what he’s doing, and it infects you with vivacity.
But it is short lived because the following track, “Saturday Waits,” is simply just not a good song at its core. Here his falsetto is inappropriate, grinding eardrums down to their base, and adding a hundred other instruments can’t fix that. Still, as is the case with all the slip ups of Loney, Noir, it is more forgettable than hateable.
There are other complaints to be made also, such as the lack of identity of the individual songs, aside from “I Am John.” It really feels like a Swedish pop record (which, well, it is) with the songs bleeding together too much. Nevertheless, Svanängen’s talent is outrageous and the not-so-thin line between innocuous and exuberant is one that he’s bound to cross more consistently.
-Kent Thompson
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