Peer Validated

Remember when your friend started recording his “solo album”? It was right after his jam band broke up, and his girlfriend stopped going out with him because he smoked too much “dank-ass weed.” He holed himself up for a month in his parents’ basement, he bought pro-tools, a banjo, 2 acoustic guitars, one baritone guitar, a bass, and an alto saxophone. He poured his heart and soul into every song. He mastered it himself, and would say things like, “Oh man, I’m really feeling this.” When you came over, he played you the master copy… and it sounded like Dave Matthews shitting all over Phish. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

This is typical. Guys who record cds where they play all the instruments are typically the worst. The worst. Emil Svanangen is the exception to this rule. He’s the best Swedish/British/whatever export that whatever country exported has exported. ever. He sings in falsetto. He plays real instruments, really, really well. His drums don’t sound like they should be at a middle school pep assembly. In short, he recorded a real cd, all by himself.

Loney, Noir doesn’t have a bad song on it. From the rollicking opener, “Sinister in a state of hope” which has saxophone, acoustic guitar, and bells playing together and NOT sucking; to the slightly digital pop sound of, “Carrying a Stone”. Loney, Noir is the cd that all your doofus friends wished they’d made.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of this cd is the fact that it SOUNDS like a real record. The seamless blending of instruments has shattered the theory that a band needs to have five different people playing five different instruments to sound “right”. When the record slows it does so with purpose, when it rocks out, it does so with conviction. In short, everything that Svanangen tries for, he hits. Yes, the album gets a little odd with the obligatory waltz (”The Meter Marks OK”), and some of his not-quite-right sounding English can be a little grating, but that’s just spitting on a gold pile.

The cd’s uber-hit, “I am John” is on just about every compilation cd that has come out in the past two months. I felt a little weird at first, posting something on here that you can probably get from a more established (read: cred) source, but screw it, I’m doing it anyway. What starts as an almost Jack Johnsonian acoustic guitar song quickly distances itself when it incorporates all of the following:

A) BeeGees-esque falsetto singing

B) Weird keyboard bass.

C) Almost-English sung by a Swede.

F) Lots of Saxophone, once again NOT sucking.

In Closing, if you’re looking for a cd to give to your mom, brother, girlfriend, professor, gentleman-lover, or depressed solo-album-producing-friend, this would be the one to give. Either that, or Hinder.

Loney, Dear - Loney, Noir