Husky Rescue - Ship of Light (2010)

1) First Call; 2) Sound of Love; 3) Fast Lane; 4) Wolf Trap Motel; 5) Man of Stone; 6) When Time Was on Their Side; 7) Grey Pastures, Still Waters; 8) We Shall Burn Bright; 9) They Are Coming; 10) Beautiful My Monster

The Huskies' dream pop gets a little more muscular with their most dynamic release yet.

Key tracks: "Sound of Love", "Fast Lane", "We Shall Burn Bright"

If the previous two albums had codified ethereal moodpieces as Husky Rescue's modus operandi, their third shakes things up; compared to its predecessors and in the context of this particular group, Ship of Light is a muscular, high adrenaline record. Ghost Is Not Real showcased the growth of the band as a band, not just a studio project, and Ship of Light goes the full mile from there. Moreso than normally, here the Huskies' sound is centered around the classic bass/drums/guitar setup, and in particular the first two: the heart and soul of these songs frequently rests in their rhythm section, a propulsive bass and pounding drums leading the momentum forward. The trademark dreamy haze of the band hasn't gone anywhere, it's now simply speeding down the moonlit highway under four wheels. In other words, this is the first Husky Rescue album that deliberately tries to move away from the cinematic headphone heaven of the band's established sound, by edging towards what we could consider, for this act, a more "rock" sound. Ship of Light is constantly on the move, eagerly twitching forward and keeping its pace, with only a few serene interludes in the way.

This new emphasis on having a legitimate groove going on is great for two reasons: one in that it's another feather in Husky Rescue's cap which differentiates it from the first two albums, but also in that it gives the band the chance to spice up what they're already great at. By now we know that Husky Rescue are experts of making wonderful mood moments that paint intricate landscapes in the listener's mind - that studio magic hasn't vanished, but now it urges you to run through those landscapes. The lush, detail-heavy production pushes the rhythm in the forefront this time, so high-energy songs like "Fast Lane" and "Man of Stone" are both rich in ambience but also racing ahead: they're like soundtracks to a car chase in your dreams, and given how many people seem to have similar driving-related associations around this album, it feels almost intentional. 

The added dynamics were a welcome addition to Ghost Is Not Real and so their increased importance certainly isn't unwelcome, especially given how well it works. At best, they add a new dimension to the familiar Husky Rescue sound, like on "Sound of Love". It's Ship of Light's contribution to the tradition of stand-out pop singles that inhabit each Husky Rescue album so far, and while it's drenched in comfortably rich keyboard textures and is packed full of intricate details (I particularly love the almost-inaudible male backing vocals in the chorus), it's the bass runs and the thrusting drums that lead the song this time around, pushing the central hook to the surface. At its most exciting, it reveals entirely new aspects - the end-of-the-world rave of "We Shall Burn Bright" sounds like it's on a frantic escape run, rushing through with its organ stabs and layered percussion before finally finding itself on a clearing to launch into a majestic build-up that's all the more rewarding for what preceded it. Both burst with strength the band hadn't had before, and which they've expertly weaponised for their own means. 

There's still plenty of more familiar territory but the impact of the new band power is so strong that the old atmospheric vibes actually pale in comparison. "Grey Pastures and Still Waters" and "They Are Coming", both extended mood pieces by and far, come across more like interludes. Each Husky Rescue album has had a song or two where the purpose has been to bridge the gap between two stronger songs, but the drive of the earlier parts of Ship of Light fades these two into the background completely. Similarly "Beautiful My Monster" closes the album somewhat lacklusterly; it's nice, especially once it gets going as it hits its flashy finale, but for the first and only time on the album the band feel like they're repeating old tricks with a thin coat of new paint over it. In defense of the more graceful moments, "Wolf Trap Motel" towards the start of the album is a particularly gorgeous example of just how well Husky Rescue work as crafters of soundscapes that seize you within, with its misleadingly long introduction leading onto a lush, dream-like and wonderfully arranged mid-tempo piece. The surprise gear switch simply underlines the differences between it and its later-album siblings.

Which leads to my main complaint, i.e. that the first half of the album seems to be loaded with all the cuts Husky Rescue have been the most confident about in the excitement of their increased presence, while after the halfway point the album starts sliding down towards mostly tried and tested ideas, just less excitingly than in the past two albums. "Sound of Love" hooks you in, the straightforward bangers like the intensely cruising "Fast Lane" and the atmospherically thumping "Man of Stone" circle exciting around the beautiful moodiness of "Wolf Trap Motel", and "When Time Was on Their Side" slides from its slow-burning beginning into one of the album's best choruses. Once the album settles back into familiar ground - apart from the sudden jolt of "We Shall Burn Bright" - it starts losing its shine. Playing to the group's old strengths isn't as rewarding this time around as showing off the new skills; I start the album thinking I've grossly underrated it, and leave it by realising why I haven't rated it as highly as I thought I mayhaps should.

Minor niggles though. Three albums in and despite operating in a style where locking yourself to its aesthetics will quickly lead to repetetive albums, Ship of Light is something new to the Huskies and for a good part of its duration, exhilarating. Where the first two albums were ones you'd fall in love with through your headphones, this practically invites you to play it aloud. Husky Rescue's growth from a collaborative project centered around one ringleader to a true collaboration between a tight group of friends reaches its apex here, and it still surprises with how such a studio-focused act transfers that interplay dynamic so audibly. Fate has it then that this would turn out to be the last album for this particular line-up as well; but even if it's not their best record, the people involved really perfected their own shared magic here.

Rating: 7/10

Husky Rescue - Ghost Is Not Real (2007)

1) My Home Ghost; 2) Diamonds in the Sky; 3) Nightless Night; 4) Blueberry Tree Part I; 5) Blueberry Tree Part II; 6) Blueberry Tree Part III; 7) Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking); 8) Silent Woods; 9) Shadow Run; 10) Caravan

A dream pop trip down the Finnish woods, just as enchanting as that sounds.

Key tracks: "Diamonds in the Sky", "Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking)", "Caravan"

The big step for Husky Rescue on Ghost Is Not Real, their second album, is that they have become an actual band. Where the debut Country Falls was an archetypical producer’s record, the formation of a stable live unit around it lead to Husky Rescue becoming a group with a defined membership for the second album. With a more solid workforce behind the music, it's helped the project as a whole to steer into a more cohesive place. The defining elements of the debut are still the foundation of Husky Rescue's sound - dreamy soundscapes, gently hypnotising bass, whispering vocals and atmospheric melodies. Now, in addition, there’s a more focused approach to bringing those ideas into reality. Much moreso than the debut, Ghost Is Not Real is designed as a full journey with a clear trajectory and a conceptual angle to it, and in case it's not obvious then a third of the tracklist being dominated by a three-parter should tip you off. The biggest hint is in the liner note artwork for the album and its vivid nature imagery, both real and fantastic - and that's exactly where Husky Rescue have wandered off.

There was a pervasive, if a little hard-to-define Nordic charm and magic to Country Falls, and Ghost Is Not Real consciously dives into that a whole lot more this time around. Throughout the album the band very explicitly tap into various yet unmistakably Nordic nature imagery, e.g. “Nightless Night”, the “Blueberry Tree” trilogy and most poignantly on the wonderful serene winter stillness of "Silent Woods". Even in the songs where it isn't the central theme of the song, nature is still a tangible influence that pops up throughout one-off lyrics or even the sounds used within the songs. You don’t really listen to Husky Rescue for their lyrics but here they serve the important point of adding the final brushstrokes to the images painted with the music, hammering in the very atmosphere they’re trying to nail down. Country Falls created bite-size cinematic scores with each song and that approach is still there, but extended to a full-length feature. Ghost Is Not Real is a pseudo-documentary about road tripping through the Finnish countryside, each song a snapshot of a particular place and time that’s somewhere between real, vivid memories of seasons experienced and a kind of magical reality where every element is heightened.

Ghost Is Not Real invokes the beauty of the Finnish nature through the music especially well, in a way that even I think is preposterously pretentious to say if it wasn't for how I genuinely feel about it. To dig a little deeper there, my roots lie in Finland and the very thing I miss the most from my old haunts is the nature. Finland is a large country with a small population, with stretches and stretches of forests, fields and lakes in-between and even within the central population areas. Because the country is up north, it gets the full range of seasons in their most iconic guises: the cold, snow-covered winters, the verdant and warm summer, the visible transformation of spring and the multi-colour melancholy of autumn. Nightless nights in midsummer, the darkness that never ends in the depth of winter. You grow up in Finland and the nature becomes an integral part of who you are as a person, with deeply ingrained sensory memories which still feel fresh decades later. Those feelings and memories are pretty much impossible to really describe with words to people who do not have them (though, full caveat, will have their own equivalents), and much less in a way that doesn’t involve any kind of visuals. But that's precisely what Husky Rescue have achieved here. I listen to Ghost Is Not Real and I see those places in my mind; what the band have created here stirs those memories.

Strictly from a musical perspective, at the heart of Ghost Is Not Real as well as Husky Rescue in general lies an artful balance between between instantly affecting pop songs with big, bold melodies, and daydreamy mood pads that drift the listener somewhere else. The debut had a slight imbalance between the two, but here the band have achieved as close to an equilibrium as they can. “Diamonds in the Sky” is the very testament to that: it's the dictionary definition of Husky Rescue's sound and it's as perfect as you’d want that kind of ideal representation to be, both in terms of its sugar-sweet melodies and the lush ambience in-between them, transporting you to the backseat of a car driving through the quiet night-time countryside. “Caravan” might be an even better example. Each Husky Rescue album has that one stand-out hit cut where the band go all-in on those melodic hooks and "Caravan" is arguably the very best of them, with a driving chorus so sweet and gorgeous you’ll brush away the inherent bittersweetness of the song itself. It's a magnificent song that's both a jolt of energy as well as guaranteed headphone heaven, and if you haven't been convinced by Reeta-Leena's vocals being absolutely pitch perfect for the band's sound by the end the of the album, it's her heavenly presence here that should act as the ultimate proof. As a frontperson she's not the type who instantly commands the floor the second she steps in front of the mic, but after the practice run of the debut her soft delivery has bloomed into an essential part of the warmth of Husky Rescue's music. 

The big thing that Ghost Is Not Real introduces is the added dynamics to the group's sound. They're a real band now - a band who have gotten to trust eachother on stage and who play excellently together, and which they've decided to take to the studio with them. There's so many moments on Ghost Is Not Real that have a thrilling energy to them or which downright burst to life because of how the group, well, sound like a group on the record. The seven-minute, guitar-revved "Nightless Night" is a mad rush through the woods for its entire length and legitimately rocks, which is a brand new concept for Husky Rescue but introduced excellently because they sound like a group playing tightly together and not just session musicians. Later down the line "Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking)" takes that same urgency and retools it for use in what otherwise could have been another (admittedly lovely) dream pop song, but now it explodes and cascades in whimsical abandon while still retaining its studio-perfect arrangements; the production and arrangements in general are fantastic throughout, perfect for a headphone jaunt, and it's surprisingly the wilder moments like "Hurricane" that really bring it out. The "Blueberry Tree" trilogy is understandably the album's heart: the dreamy build-up of part 1 starts the experience gently, before moving onto the magical part 2 that skitters gleefully in its twinkling melodies, and finally the last part builds on the melodies of the first two and grows them into a majestic post-rock-esque rock climax. Together they form a gorgeous ten-minute journey that tips its toes into the various facets of Husky Rescue, brings out the beauty of the nature themes the album is centered around and ends in a thrilling way that paves the way perfectly for the last half of the album. The band sound alive and in sync, not just studio wizardry anymore but utilising the pitch-perfect production to heighten their own chemistry.

Ghost Is Not Real is Husky Rescue's best record purely from a musical perspective and through its songs, and that's something I'd imagine is a fairly universal, non-controversial take. What makes it special for me though is the particular atmosphere it invokes. I'm not certain how much they exactly planned to channel the spirit of their country through when they went all-in on the nature imagery around the album (I can't find any interviews, sadly), but I do know that after moving out of Finland this was one of the albums that kept me company when homesick, precisely because of how much like home it sounded. Between the blissful melodies and delicate soundtrack textures there's a warm, tangible feeling I associate clearly with my own roots - delivered through the perfectly fitting form of a stunningly good dream pop album.

Rating: 9/10

Husky Rescue - Country Falls (2004)

1) Sweet Little Kitten; 2) Summertime Cowboy; 3) New Light of Tomorrow; 4) Sunset Drive; 5) My World; 6) City Lights; 7) Gasoline Girl; 8) Rainbow Flows; 9) Sleep Tight Tiger; 10) Mean Street; 11) The Good Man; 12) The Man Who Flew Away

Less a band here and more a group of people under one producer's varied vision, but the gorgeous atmospheric touch and impossibly sweet melodies are already present.

Key tracks: "Summertime Cowboy", "New Light of Tomorrow", "City Lights"

Husky Rescue's recipe is clear and recognisable. There's the wispy vocals, the atmospheric dream pop production and the unimitable Nordic charm that ties it all together and gives it that extra little magic. They make catchy melodies for the moments when you watch the sun set in the horizon, when you're driving on an empty road at 1AM or when you're enjoying your personal quiet with your headphones on. Some things have changed along the years but you can always count on the same identifiable elements to be there, like a reliable comrade who's always perfect to take along when a particular mood strikes. Those elements are on Country Falls too.

Where Country Falls - their debut - is a little different is that at this stage Husky Rescue are still closer to a producer's project, not a band or a collaboration. Everything's still taking shape, various pieces swapped around to see which fits the spot better. Rather than a set group of people going for a singular vision, this is head man Marko Nyberg's playground and he enlists numerous helping hands to stretch out the same central stylistic idea - soundtrack-esque pop - into various directions. Future lead singer Reeta-Leena Vestman (née Korhola) is only one of the various voices (male and female) found throughout the album, with no single vocal identity establishing itself as the lead across the variety of songs. Which is apt, because the songs themselves vary: you can find the more obvious blueprints to their next couple of records throughout Country Falls but there's also excursions to wholly different places, from instrumental chillout to perky sugar-laden melodies and a song dominated by a long spoken word piece. The atmospheric production is the connecting factor between the songs and prevents the album from being more disjointed than it could in theory be: if there's one feeling Country Falls wants to leave you with, it's one of being surrounded by a cloud of smooth sounds.

That slight disjointedness that peeks out periodically is both part of Country Falls' charm and the reason why it feels a little askew from the rest of the group's catalogue. Its air is rich with turn-of-millennium chillout wave and that makes it easy to slot the album into a particular place in time and geography. That, together with the variety in songs and singers, means it lacks the Husky Rescue -specific identity the later albums would have; something like Country Falls could have come from so many directions around the same time, and there's a direct lineage between this and peak chilltronica like Röyksopp's Melody AM. But the same approach also brings many great things that the band - when they later actually became a band - wouldn't have sought to create later on. "Summertime Cowboy" is the brightest, perkiest pop moment ever released under the Husky Rescue name, a song for summer afternoons rather than evenings, and its sunshine is absolutely irresistable. "New Light of Tomorrow" is a marvellous piece of soothing melancholy that would only need a little more prominent guitar part in order to have found a place in any respectably moody euro-rock album of the time; Sam Shingler's vocals work perfectly in it as well, to a point that some of the song's effect could have been lost with a singer more in line with the standard Husky Rescue style. The 8-minute showpiece finale "The Good Man" is the closest the album comes to nailing the initial soundtrack-leaning concept perfectly; it begins with a slow build-up lead by a spoken word narrative and once it's done, the music becomes the storyteller, bit by bit becoming a grand, dynamic showpiece growing in intensity and greatness, like a great piece of score depicting a long scene growing in scope each second. In the tracklist it appears after a period of long silence following "Mean Street" like a bonus track that found itself attached into the main tracklist, but the idea of it being apart from the actual album at any point feels so strange given it's one of its most impressive musical statements.

What these curveball moments happen to demonstrate is that at this stage, Husky Rescue might be a little too chill. The template for the rest of the album is mellow and suave, and frequently that's great. "City Lights", "Sweet Little Kitten", "Rainbow Flows", "Sunset Drive" make a reasonable backbone for Country Falls; a couple of them, namely the blissful musical cuddle "Sweet Little Kitten" and "City Lights" which might as well be the singular definition of Husky Rescue, are even among the album's best songs. Still, despite the minor variations in the formula it can get a little too relaxed, to the point that you end up craving more of those moments where Nyberg and the gang stretch their wings. If you're in the mood for being enveloped by a pillow of smooth sounds it's great, but particularly the back half of the album gets very, very mellow in a way that's in danger of becoming overly so, before "The Good Man" wakes things up (it's then probably ironic that the literal lullaby "Sleep Tight Tiger" is my favourite of this stretch, but it's just too cosy not to fall in love with). It's not a criticism per se, more an observation - that atmosphere is what drew me to Country Falls in the first place, but if you're not in the right mind set for it the album can leave much less of an impression behind.

The next few albums would see Husky Rescue become more of a group that creates music together and through that their sound would grow more dynamic, and that style would come to define them forevermore; even if eventually Nyberg would deconstruct and rebuild the group again as a more electronic outfit. Country Falls then is probably the purest incarnation of the initial idea behind Husky Rescue: sweet pop songs with a richly textured sound that would evoke majestic landscapes in mind, with the world and the soul resting easy within them. It's done with skill and charm, and it's easily one of the better records of the particular stylistic wave it's ended up becoming associated with. Certainly production-wise it's a marvel: it really shines through a good set of headphones and in that form you really get a sense of the atmosphere taking you to places. And yet, while its heart yearns for soothing sounds it's the parts where it goes somewhere wholly different and lively that leave the strongest impressions, and that contrast leaves it a little less than a sum of its parts. If I sound a little conflicted on what to make of it, then that's what I am: it's impossible to deny Country Falls' charms and strengths - it's a very, very good album - but at the same time it's the Husky Rescue album I listen to the least these days because it lacks the focus the others have.

Still, play Country Falls on a late summer evening when the sun goes down, and it'll feel like the most perfect record for that moment in time.

Rating: 7/10