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Avg: 4.0 (110 ratings)
- Date Released: January 27, 2009
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Rock
- Label: Polyvinyl Record Co
Swedish songwriter tries to fight loneliness
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We Say...
Loney Dear, aka Emil Svanängen, has a few overlapping attributes with countrymen like Jens Lekman. He's got instantly arresting pipes that sigh and mumble vulnerabilities, and he applies them to melodies that crawl into your head and make themselves at home. But he's as willing to stretch himself into unexpectedly flattering musical situations as he is to play up his folky strengths. He begins his third international album with two sprightly tempoed tracks, "Airport Surroundings" and "Everything Turns to You." Here and elsewhere there are synthesizers plying hooks that are faintly reminiscent of European trance ditties. But the references are subtle, hidden behind the fumblings of failed romances. And for the album's bulk, he builds on uneasy feelings. "It's so hard to change from wrong to everything okay," he sings. That's on a song called "Violent." And it's the happiest cut here.
Dear John's centerpiece masterstroke, "Under a Silent Sea," begins like a typical cafe-friendly track, with synths discreetly weeping and rumbling. Soon after the minute-and-a-half mark, though, he lets loose the pop-rave riffs he'd earlier kept in check, bringing in gradually mounting beats. Finally surrendering to the inevitable, baby-faced Emil then sets his eerie cathedral keyboards straight to gothic disco heaven. It's precisely where his lonely self belongs. -
They Say...
Since his debut in 2007, Emil Svanängen (the man behind Loney, Dear) has managed to evade easy categorization. It's simply not enough to say that he sounds like Jens Lekman, seeing how the main draw of Svanängen's work has less to do with his lyrics and more to do with mood. He's more like pop-oriented multi-instrumentalists like Tobias Fröberg and Sufjan Stevens; Loney, Dear is a quirky, bittersweet master of atmosphere. Svanängen sophomore effort, 2009's Dear John, picks up where his first album left off; like Loney, Noir, Dear John is chock-full of luminous instrumental textures and heartfelt lyrics. That said, Dear John is clearly more adult than its predecessor; the production is sleeker, the arrangements are more studied. Thankfully, Dear John's maturity doesn't mean that it lacks the fun stuff that made Svanängen's first album shine. Dear John's upbeat moments, ranging from the chic synth flourishes of "Airport Surroundings" to the joyful whistling on "I Was Only Going Out," are simply a delight. Similar to Svanängen's debut, Dear John is strongest when it strikes a balance between mournfulness and optimism. The album only sags when Svanängen lets things get a mite too plodding and somber; "Harm/Slow," perhaps sentencing itself to sogginess by borrowing its tune from Tomaso Albinoni's "Adagio," is simply not the most engaging moment on the album. That said, this is the disc's only real stumble, and overall Svanängen seems to have learned a lesson or two about pacing since Loney, Noir. Dear John shows that Svanängen has really gotten his act together; it makes good on all the tremulous, tender, wistful promise of his debut.
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| 01. |  |
Airport Surroundings |
3:27 |
|
| 02. | |
Everything Turns To You |
3:48 |
|
| 03. | |
I Was Only Going Out |
3:38 |
|
| 04. | |
Harsh Words |
3:15 |
|
| 05. | |
Under a Silent Sea |
5:31 |
|
| 06. | |
I Got Lost |
2:52 |
|
| 07. | |
Summers |
4:07 |
|
| 08. | |
Distant Lights |
2:56 |
|
| 09. | |
Harm/Slow |
4:28 |
|
| 10. | |
Violent |
3:52 |
|
| 11. | |
Dear John |
3:53 |
|
11 Total Tracks, 41:47 Total Length
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Credits
- Andrew Bird - Violin // Andrew Bird - Violin // Kate Gaughran - Photography // Emil Svanängen - Engineer // Malin Ståhlberg - Vocals // Oscar Svenningsson - Trombone
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