Kent - En plats i solen (2010)

1) Glasäpplen; 2) Ismael; 3) Skisser för sommaren; 4) Ärlighet respekt kärlek; 5) Varje gång du möter min blick; 6) Ensam lång väg hem; 7) Team Building; 8) Gamla Ullevi; 9) Minimalen; 10) Passagerare

No plan or greater concept, just a casually put together set of ten songs with bright sounds. 

Key tracks: "Skisser för sommaren", "Ärlighet respekt kärlek", "Gamla Ullevi"

En plats i solen was released roughly seven months after Röd, with nary a warning or an accompanying fanfare. One day you just had two new songs available online with an announcement that an album would arrive in a week's time, and that's it. Behind the scenes, Kent had been feeling particularly inspired and the band thought to strike while the iron's hot rather than hold off until a full new album cycle, and the intention was to get the new songs they had been writing out while they were still new to the band as well - the album was reportedly finished the very month it was announced to the public. After a series of heavily thematic, cohesively put together records En plats i solen was an intentional break from such affairs - a holiday per the name (“A Place in the Sun”) - by way of simply knocking out some songs together and releasing them out in the wild.

With quick successor albums like En plats i solen you often find yourself viewing them as the b-sides collections for the preceding albums, and there is some truth to that here too as some of the songs were leftovers from the Röd sessions (though I'd be hard pressed to say which, with "Minimalen" being my most obvious guess). That said, viewed in retrospect, En plats i solen is far better described as the first glimpse of Kent's next phase. The electronic soundscape of Röd was here to stay but following its tour, a live band dynamic had started to creep back into the fray to act as the undercurrent pulling the synthesizer textures together and, perhaps coincidentally, the suave gloom around the last few albums had started to move to the side. Next year's follow-up album Jag är inte rädd för mörkret would be the conclusion to the change Kent was undertaking as it would engorge itself in bright and optimistic songs rich in melody, and En plats i solen leans a lot more towards that end goal than it does in Röd's direction, though it's still in the middle of pulling its other foot slowly away from its direct predecessor's shadow. It's a snapshot of the route Kent took from the darkness of Röd towards the sunlight of what was to come. 

The ten songs on En plats i solen are unrelated and without a greater concept or plan, and they are more extroverted and openly audience-friendly than Kent had been for a long while, going some way to bridge the gap between the popular rock hits of their past with the guidelines the band was operating on in the present day. They understandable carry lesser stakes, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. All the songs are forced to live on their own merits and for Kent that means going all-in on the hook department, which is extremely entertaining. Their strong melody game had never gone on hold but since Du & jag döden the band had began to treat albums as singular entities where all parts supported one another - now it's each song for itself, and that means Kent let them all explode as big as they can. But, the quick writing and recording process also means that some of the quality control from the previous album runs has loosened up and for the first time in recent memory, there’s a clear gap between the album at its strongest and and weakest, now without a stronger context to perhaps give the slightly lesser songs some non-musical meaning. And there's a number of them. "Varje gång du möter min blick" buries a great chorus with largely meandering verses, “Ensam lång väg hem” has some nifty sonic details but its repetition-heavy build doesn’t work as interestingly as it could, the bouncy synth pop cut “Ismael” used to be a favourite of mine but now sounds like the first draft of future Kent songs in its vein (I still like it - just that I like its successors more) and most damningly, I’ve owned this record since release and I still can’t remember how “Team Building” sounds off the top of my head. If you were to disparage this album as way to cash out on some quick outtakes and leftovers, there’s definitely material here to base that assumption on.

There is a night and day difference though between the more middling moments and the rest. The common thread throughout the album of Kent tackling more hit-oriented material, as if as a way to make up for the more esoteric singles of the previous albums and to throw some good ol’ crowd pleasers out, unexpectedly results in uniformly great songs. The synth fireworks and whistle hooks of "Gamla Ullevi" find Kent interpreting 2010s EDM choruses in their own language, the album stand-out “Skisser för sommaren” makes a crowd-begging la-la-la chorus sound fresh and euphoric (a special mention goes how wonderfully the song picks itself back up after its freak-out breakdown, right back into that undefeatable chorus),  the mournful and steadfast "Ärlighet respekt kärlek" shows just how great the band are at stadium-sized torchsong ballads when they're in the mood for one, and “Glasäpplen” utilises disco strings and beats over its emotionally detached delivery with such suave and charm as if it invented them. The album-focused orientation of the past few albums was one of the reasons they make up Kent’s golden period, but it’s actually refreshing to hear the band knock out a number of songs that are effortlessly, refreshingly open and welcoming - in part because they are so excellent at it. It’s the same strength that Vapen & ammunition held with its singles-or-bust approach, but this time the band are less self-aware about it which makes it, in some way, a little more honest and warm.

As far as the rest go, it’s enjoyable standard-tier Kent. The skittering electro of “Minimalen” nods towards Röd the most and it's a welcome change of pace towards the end of the album, and towards the weary prettiness and powerful duet vocals of “Passagerare” which closes the record with a yearning sigh. The album has a slight lean towards being frontloaded but it finishes cosily and comfortably, even if a little unspectacularly. And as it ends, no moment of reflection of what you’ve just listened to ever comes to pass, or any real lingering notion for that matter. I feel bad for saying this - because I do really like En plats i solen - but it’s an album I sometimes forget about, as it's sandwiched between two bigger personalities to the point that its appearance in the chronology is often accompanied by an “oh, that’s right” level of realising it’s there. En plats i solen is - for better or worse - a set of ten songs by Kent, some great and some less so, written and captured on tape as the band was coming off their creative imperial phase. After a discography of albums where each record has had a purpose to play in the story, En plats i solen feels slightly underwhelming as an album that "just" exists. A good album, as I’ve said - but one that is primarily a palate cleanser rather than a notable independent entry.

Rating: 7/10

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (2002)

1) You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire; 2) No One Knows; 3) First It Giveth; 4) Song for the Dead; 5) The Sky Is Fallin'; 6) Six Shooter; 7) Hangin' Tree; 8) Go with the Flow; 9) Gonna Leave You; 10) Do It Again; 11) God Is in the Radio; 12) Another Love Song; 13) Song for the Deaf; 14) Mosquito Song; Bonus track: 15) Everybody's Gonna Be Happy

Brutish, muscular and with a wicked sense of fun. It may be the only QOTSA album I really like but they sure hit the nail on the head with it.

Key tracks: “First It Giveth”, “Gonna Leave You”, “God Is in the Radio”

Bands with revolving memberships can be like slot machines: sometimes the line-up changes result in jackpots, and Songs for the Deaf is the 777 for Josh Homme's band of merry musicians. No other Queens of the Stone Age album has managed to hold my attention, yet here everything locks into place. Homme as the reliable core constant; Nick Oliveri as the chaos that lends the album a manic energy; Mark Lanegan’s gravely murmurs are the perfect fit for the record's desert-dry road trip; and perhaps most importantly, Dave Grohl presents the best case for why he belongs behind the drums rather than in front of Foo Fighters. I like the songs on Songs for the Deaf too, but remove or replace any of the core set of performers that bring those songs to life, and I don’t think they would work anywhere near as well. There’s a magical chemistry between the four main QOTSA squad members on this album, which makes Songs of the Deaf the muscular, brutish and entertainingly thrilling record that it is. 

 

It's fun, too, and perhaps most of all. Songs for the Deaf sounds angry and aggressive with its heavy riffs and Grohl's thunder god drums - in my teen years this was one of my go-to grr mrr teen angst albums - but it's as playful with that harder edge as it is genuinely inclined to make a lot of noise. Songs for the Deaf presents itself as a very archetypical Guitar Rock Album by an archetypical Guitar Rock Band and there are parts of the record that are practically overwrought with generic bad-ass masculinity (the constant car thematics, the over the top capital-R Rock radio DJs, the edgelord sperm logo in the liner notes), and while it would be wrong to say that the album subverts any of that, it has fun with it. "No One Knows", "Gonna Leave You", "Another Love Song", heck even "Go With the Flow" could all have been whimsical pop songs in another life, such is their breeziness and jovial nature - which the band then push cover in their grit and muscle and splice them with a hint of something more sinister to spice things up. The edition I have features a cover of The Kinks' "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy" as a bonus track at the end, where the flower power rock-along gets the same sonical treatment as everything else on the record; that mixture is honestly much more indicative of the whole album than you'd think from a random bonus cover, and to some extent it makes it obvious what gear the band were actually operating on when coming up with the album.

Nonetheless, the best thing that Homme and his companions do across Songs for the Deaf is rock out loud and hard. “No One Knows” is the hit everyone knows but I can't say I've ever been too enamoured by it and I’d easily rank it as among the album’s weaker cuts, with that bare-bones stomp beat it mostly operates on largely cruising past what actually makes the album great. Compare it to e.g. its counterpart singles, the full-adrenaline highway cruising “Go With the Flow” and the twisting and swirling stadium anthem “First It Giveth” and you can tell what their more famous sibling lacks as they abundantly conjure a storm of energy and noise, in particular how Homme (and the countless guest guitarists across the album) makes his guitar scream and growl while Grohl operates on some unholy zeal behind the drum kit. The extended showmanship pieces - “Song for the Dead”, “Song for the Deaf” and “God Is in the Radio” - primarily exist to serve that musicianship, dedicating large sections of their running length to the jam-like interplay between musicians who have tuned onto the same mental channel and really tap into that mythical rock and roll magic that wimpy indie dweebs like me most of the time just don’t get to indulge in. 

 

But above all, this is the album of immensely rewarding deep cuts where the album’s love for solid hooks gets to run the most unrestrained. “The Sky Is Fallin’” and “Hangin’ Tree” swirl with the darker undercurrents of the most isolate parts of the desert the driver of the album’s thematic cycle drives through, and they marry that aesthetic with some of hte album's most understated yet bewitching chorus hooks. The whole final stretch from “Go with the Flow” to “Another Love Song” is fierce pogoing fun, where big guitar textures meet bigger hooks and the impish smirk of the first half of the album moves to a wide open grin: for a rock album, this is incredibly backloaded and many of its best parts lie in its deepest areas. Though, it's not like the first half has anything to be embarrassed about and in particular “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar…” is the perfect opener for what Songs for the Deaf turns out to be, as it literally sucker punches the album into the groove it stays on for its duration.

 

Following Songs for the Deaf Grohl returned to his own projects and Oliveri was kicked out of the band due to abuse allegations, and the Queens subsequently lost their spark. Or at least, that's what it felt like: the follow-up album Lullabies to Paralyze was an altogether murkier affair and while it gained critical favour from the fans, the casually interested me lost track. Songs for the Deaf became a curio in a record shelf, a one-off moment of attraction from a band who transforms with each release to the delight and disgruntlement of their fans. But even for the general consensus, Songs for the Deaf has found its place as an album clearly indicative of that imperial moment when a group of musicians go all-in with the intention of creating their magnum opus, and that ambition is rewarded as soon as the gas pedal goes down in the album's intro. It'd be easy to call this dumb rock fun - it's sort of how I treat it as these days whenever I'm in the mood for it - but it's so much smarter than it lets on in how it builds its songs and lays its hooks, and those brains guiding the guitar-heavy brawn of the record is what makes it work so well. Turn the volume up, kick back and enjoy the ride.

True story: I went to a religious summer camp when I was a teenager as kids my age in my country back in the day did out of habit/peer pressure from our parents. One of the girls in my school class who I had spoken about music before also attended, and she borrowed me this album for a listen during the camp. It does amuse me how the most tangible memory I hold from that camp is that exchange and how this Christian excursion lead me to discover this album of all things.

Rating: 8/10

Peter McConnell - Grim Fandango: Original Game Soundtrack (1998)

1) Casino Calavera; 2) Swanky Maximino; 3) Smooth Hector; 4) Mr. Frustration Man; 5) Hector Steps Out; 6) Hi-Tone Fandango; 7) She Sailed Away; 8) High Roller; 9) Domino's in Charge; 10) Trouble with Carla; 11) Blue Casket Bop; 12) Manny's Office; 13) Rubacava; 14) Blue Hector; 15) This Elevator Is Slow; 16) Domino; 17) Don Copal; 18) Neon Ledge; 19) Nuevo Marrow; 20) Gambling Glottis; 21) Raoul Appears; 22) Scrimshaw; 23) Talking Limbo; 24) Coaxing Meche; 25) Lost Souls' Alliance; 26) Los Angelitos; 27) The Enlightened Florist; 28) Temple Gate; 29) Ninth Heaven; 30) Companeros; 31) Manny & Meche; 32) Bone Wagon

Like it says on the cover: big band, bebop and bones. But what if I don't like big band and bebop...

Key tracks: "Hi-Tone Fandango", "Lost Souls' Alliance", "Ninth Heaven"

My great musical crime which forever bars me from entering the cool kids club is that I don't like jazz. It's a genre I have literally zero emotional resonance with, unless it gets particularly bad at which point it becomes one of the few tangents in the wide world of music as an art form that I genuinely dislike; free jazz is something I can earnestly say I hate, and I very rarely use that word with music. This is a weight I've carried on my shoulders for decades and I don't see this changing, unless I end up with some kind of major head injury that rewires me from the ground up. Sorry, not sorry. The Grim Fandango soundtrack is as close to a jazz album as I'll probably ever come to own. The Rate Your Music genre listing for the album specifically breaks its influences down to bebop, smooth jazz, Latin jazz and big band among a few others - I couldn't really tell where one ends and another begins, but presumably it's somewhere within this diaspora where my brain finds some kind of an acceptable threshold. Or perhaps it's simply the bias shining, because this is the soundtrack one of my favourite greatest games of all time and that kind of association can pull a hefty weight.

Click-and-point adventure games were one of the first genres I remember falling in love with when I first encountered the medium of video games - I didn’t even understand English when I started playing them, but I was so enchanted by how they played in contrast to the platformer games I mostly associated with games at that point, that I played them with a dictionary by my side or meticulously determining what the words meant through context: I self-taught myself English long before school and I can genuinely attribute a good deal of my bilingualism to those games. Grim Fandango, released in 1998, is often cited as the last great hoorah for the genre, before it fell out of favour in the mainstream and its torch was passed down to the hands of European niche enthusiasts. If it were to be considered a swan song, then it is a spectacular closing act. Its setting is truly unique in gaming, it’s seasoned thoroughly with incredible writing and acting that lends it full of emotion (be it genuine laughs or actual gravitas) and the core gameplay - centered around your typical adventure game puzzles - are thoroughly entertaining and avoids many of the quirks the genre was criticsed for. Many games boast to be cinematic but this is always in reference to epic set pieces and fancy on-rails sections: Grim Fandango is like an incredible miniseries where the characters and the writing pull you in for a binge watch you’ll never forget. From the perspective of someone who grew up with the genre and who loves it dearly, Grim Fandango is absolutely one of its greatest peaks.

Grim Fandango’s world is a mishmash of 1930s art deco and the Mexican Day of the Dead, and so its soundtrack is also a meeting of two worlds. The lounge-y jazz vibes that have already been mentioned interact with Mexican folk music as the game moves from its swanky high roller locales towards the more folk-loric heart of the Mexican underworld, and the soundtrack does a splendid job fleshing out these incredibly contrasting surroundings. The jazz elements of the score are for large parts relatively restrained thanks to their purpose in describing the tone of the setting through sound, which prevents them from going off rails, and despite my genre allergy there are a number of songs here that I do appreciate because of their role in the game. “Hi-Tone Fandango” in particular is an iconic video game song for me, and though it may not sound much to anyone who hasn’t played the game, it’s a song that so vividly brings the listener back to its appointed locale if you have had the chance to wander the world with it tracing your steps. I can't say I'm too enamoured by most of the music here on its own, without the context, but I can enjoy it to the extent that it gives the world a faint hope that maybe my taste can be saved one day.

 
The special parts of the Grim Fandango score for me are the ones that lean heavier towards the Latin and Mexican influences. Peter McConnell's music is incredibly atmospheric throughout and while the jazz parts work with the film noir tension and high style aesthetics of Grim Fandango's world at its swankiest, the music that's more in line with the folklore heart of the game and feature the score's most beautiful and most atmospheric cuts.  The wistful optimism of “Ninth Heaven” is absolutely lovely and practically acts as the game's theme for me, and "Lost Souls' Alliance" actually benefits from being taken away from its context. It has a very slow pace and build and the area it plays in is normally heavy with dialogue, so hearing it on its own really helps appreciate just what a delightfully crafted thing it is. There are a few other genre hops scattered throughout that are delightful in their own ways, such as the psychedelic surf rock of "Bone Wagon" as well as the hilariously sadsack "Talking Limbo" which is almost kind of touching in its own special heartbroken sailor way.

If there is a principal reason as to why I don’t find myself tuning onto the Grim Fandango soundtrack as much as I might expect to given my reverence for the game, it’s not actually because of its genres of choice. Game music by its nature often behaves in loops, and I’m not a fan of when soundtracks squeeze the songs in by limiting the loops they go through; and so my largest complaint about the Grim Fandango OST is how most of its 32 songs are gone in 1-2 minutes. Many of these songs would be good enough to have warranted a few runs through their central loop, to let the songs and the melodies linger around for a while for a greater impact; some of them are great to the point that limiting them to a quick 1-minute round feels practically unfair and like you're being robbed out of the full portion. There are obviously also songs within that extensive that don’t stand out as much, sometimes intentionally, but when those songs are the same length as the more essential tracks you specifically listen to this soundtrack for, it ends up highlighting the less engaging sentiment of the former while at the same time failing to give justice to the latter.

Which leads to the central dilemma. In the recent months I’ve been reviewing a number of video game soundtracks and I find them to be a challenging balancing act full of pitfalls. By default I dislike the notion to treat soundtracks differently to any other music - you have a reasonable argument in how the context of playing the game bears such a heavy impact when considering the music, but as music listeners we imprint our own contexts to so many "normal" albums that it feels like a moot point. But it’s soundtracks like Grim Fandango’s that throw me off my own high horse. I appreciate the music because of the reverence I hold for the game, but it feels practically impossible to reconcile that with how so much of this music I would probably turn off if not for those memories they evoke, and how even the great moments can sometimes pass by like they’re nothing of interest purely because the way they have been edited and presented in this collection. That’s an aspect that’s unique to soundtracks and it breaks my logic, and I've spent the days I've sketched out this review considering how much I actually enjoy this soundtrack. So I take a coward's way out and rate it somewhere in the middle of the spectrum: it's music that evokes a lot in me, but it's one of the soundtracks in my collection I probably listen to the least.

Rating: 6/10

Kent - Röd (2009)

1) 18:29-4; 2) Taxmannen; 3) Krossa allt; 4) Hjärta; 5) Sjukhus; 6) Vals för Satan (Din vän pessimisten); 7) Idioter; 8) Svarta linjer; 9) Ensamheten; 10) Töntarna; 11) Det finns inga ord

Kent redefine themselves by boldly pushing deeper towards a more electronic sound, with a record that's a deep and awe-inspiring journey.

Key tracks: "Vals för Satan (Din vän pessimisten)", "Svarta linjer", "Töntarna"

Kent were frustratingly quiet in media (even the Swedish Wikipedia articles for their works are miniscule, despite how huge they were in their own country) so there's rarely any contextual information available to gain a further understanding on how each album came to be. There is however a particular interview from 2009 which confirms a couple of points behind the process for Röd. One is that Kent were getting increasingly fascinated with the idea of merging a rock band with an electronic act to the point where you couldn't see the seams: 2007's Tillbaka till samtiden had been the first taste of this direction and now the band were hungry for more and eager to take it further. The other tidbit is that during the recording of the album the band actively wanted to ignore their past, not just their own discography but by also refusing to listen to any old favourites that had historically inspired them - the only music they personally consumed during the sessions was music that was being created in the present day by brand new artists. Kent wanted to create a version of themselves who were completely in the moment, free of any prior baggage.

Röd is Kent's moment of epiphany. Tillbaka till samtiden had started out as just another reactionary move in a series of albums defined by such, but its more electronic sound had resonated with the band more than they or anyone anticipated. Everything clicked and Kent found themselves at the start of a whole new path, and so they went all in on it. Röd was recorded in Berlin's Hansa studio which has become synonymous with artists seeking to reinvent themselves in particularly modern ways, and Röd bears all the hallmarks of a so-called "Berlin album": dense production, highly modern or even futuristic soundscapes, the artist diving deep into a new direction in a quest to reconfigure their music. It's somewhat ironic that when seeking nothing but modernity the band ended up seeking inspiration in a place where many others have sought out the exact same as they did, but the magic worked once more. After a lifetime of constant change, Kent finally figured themselves out.

Whether it's because of the ghosts of Hansa or the more battle-minded confidence brought on by the decision to really drill into the electronic soundscapes, Röd acts like it has everything to prove and it has come prepared for it. It's an album in the very sense of the word: a tightly written and cohesively built journey where all the peaks and valleys form a clear narrative, where songs flow carefully into one another and where every twist and turn is meticulously planned. There's even a bonafide intro - Kent's first and only - and its commoner church choir is a beguiling start, leading cunningly into the synth scatter and aggressive disco beat of "Taxmannen". Röd has been designed from the ground up to be a powerful whole, but not at the expense of songs. There are no weaker tracks that only work as the bridges between the heftier cuts, but rather each song is meant to be an individual Moment that continues the the emotional and musical heights of what came immediately before. Each song is a a standout that avoids obvious or conventional pathways towards their climax point, throwing curveballs and revealing new facets of themselves. Each track feels important. 

None perhaps more than "Vals för Satan (Din vän pessimisten)". When Kent held the album's launch party and livestreamed the concert, "Vals för Satan" served as the opener and the introduction to the world of Röd despite being the album's literal centerpiece - but it was nothing if not appropriate, because it's the sound of Kent's present and future distilled. It's where the strains of rock and electronic sound embrace most intimately in the way the Kent dreamed, where the deep synthesizer layers combine with the muscle of a band playing in the same room, unfurling into an intricate and exhilirating colossus of a song. It's a phenomenal song that threatens to become gigantic - and for a brief moment becomes so as its second chorus explodes - but which deconstructs and folds into itself in burning tension at the verge of becoming a stadium anthem. That tension, subtly shifting through its synth loops and a steady rhythmic backbone before it can't hide anymore, is its heart and hearing it beat was and still is a something that sends shivers.

Its strengths are emblematic of Röd as a whole. Röd rivals Du & jag döden as Kent's absolute peak and it's so interesting because of how different these two albums are sonically: one drenched in empassioned guitars and the other navigating through cold synthesizers. But both are connected through how determined they are, finding Kent at a time and place where they felt they needed to define themselves as they steered their sound into very specific places. Both are also incredibly emotional albums that climb to incredible heights, but for Röd that emotion is pure and cold ambition and the climaxes are result of a "Vals för Satan" -like tension bubbling until it pours over with vindication and vitality. Röd is the kind of album that you perhaps don't lose yourself in emotionally like you may have done for Du & jag döden, but rather it reveals something surprising and equally awe-striking at every given opportunity. What just happened, how did that just happen, where the hell is it going to go next - and even when you know the answers, Röd still overwhelms by its denseness and, quite frankly, its audacity.

I have a lot of love for the first half of Röd - "Taxmannen" and "Krossa allt" are an inseparable dynamite duo that sets the tone and velocity of the record impressively, "Hjärta" swells and thunders in its heartrending orchestral-adjacent anguish and "Sjukhus" patiently speeds towards its free-fall of an ending in an enviably confident manner. But because the album's flow is a carefully thought out narrative, its first chapters are essentially just the slow introduction of Kent's new style of play and a tease for what's to come. After "Vals för Satan" reveals the hand in full, the rest of Röd keeps laying on the trump cards. "Idioter" and "Svarta linjer" are the closest to classic Kent rock songs the record has to offer but translated into the new language; "Svarta linjer" would have been massive in any form it would have received thanks to its fantastic call-and-answer hook that goes on for the entire song and its stunning launch into its full form, but here it sounds practically pristine as the heavy production lifts for a moment and gives the song the space it needs to spread it wings. And if the flight of "Svarta linjer" is majestic and controlled, the hectic rave cascade that "Ensamheten" breaks down into is a mad dash all over the place, raising a whirlwind. 

"Töntarna" was released as the lead single for Röd and it served as a very strong statement of intent- now in full context, in its place hidden away towards the end, it sounds perhaps even weirder than it did all on its own. It's a crooked and twisted pop song, ultimately revolving around a big chorus with some serious groove to it and featuring a series of snappy hooks (that added percussion melody in the second verse is so simple it's kind of ingenius), but it's been turned so inward and shying away from any light that it's barely recognisable as such. The rigid and mechanical rhythms, the distorted textures draping the background and Berg's multi-tracked and processed vocals lend it an air of uneasiness and even when it starts letting its hair down towards the end, the extended finale is more akin to deliriously falling down through a rabbit hole than any kind of sweet release. It's a fascinating song and there's nothing else like it in Kent's catalogue: tucked away as track ten of its parent album, it sees Röd bringing out its demons before they're done away with, the dark undercurrents of the record manifested into a singular weird-ass song.  

That makes "Det finns inga ord" the actual exorcism of those demons. I've always viewed the song in parallel to the closer for Tillbaka till samtiden, "Ensammast i Sverige" - they inhabit the same slot in the tracklist and are the longest songs on their respective records, they're both driven by a striking drum loop and they both offer a moment of reflection and peace after the swerves of what came before. The key difference is that where "Ensammast in Sverige" kept its cool throughout its length, "Det finns inga ord" gathers the courage to blossom. It's the most conventionally beautiful song across the entire Röd, with no tension or overwhelming denseness to speak of: it simply blooms from a petite melody into a declaration of love the size of the universe. At the end of such a dizzying album, it offers the serenity to guide the listener to take in everything they have just heard, while covering the dark sky with the most beautiful colours in such a vast scope. It's the most "normal" thing on the entire album but it's at the exact right spot where that makes all the difference, and it ends Röd with grace.

In my review for Du & jag döden - Kent's other all-time classic record - I acknowledged it as the record where Kent perfected what they as a band stand for: in tone, in emotion, in resonance. Röd does that again, but more concretely in terms of sound. If Tillbaka till samtiden had left a more ambiguous cliffhanger impression of whether Kent would go electronic again afterwards, Röd clarified that intent. It did it so strongly in fact that from here on in Kent would be a mix of rock band dynamics and tightly programmed backing tracks until their very end, sometimes emphasising one end over the other but always very clearly using the same model. Kent were a band that spent a lot of their first decade of albums constantly shifting shape either by evolving or shedding skin, and Röd finally fixed them in their place. That shouldn't be seen as a slight against Röd because, well, I don't blame them - this particular sound does fit Kent absolutely perfectly no matter how much I love their guitar heydays, and Röd itself is an incredibly impactful album. It's a phoenix at the moment of its rebirth, bursting in glorious flames and showcasing its new self with pride and confidence: it's Kent creating a singular piece of work that accurately reflects how seismic and important its creation felt for the band. Röd is Kent finding that glimmer of perfection once more, with a truly rewarding, deep record.

Rating: 9/10

Kent - Box 1991 - 2008 (2008)

CD1: Kent (1995) + Bonus tracks: 12) Döda dagar; 13) Håll i mig (Jones och Giftet); 14) Ögon (Jones och giftet); 15) Klocka (Havsänglar); 16) Cirkel (Havsänglar)
CD2: Verkligen (1996) + Bonus tracks: 11) Saker man ser (Demo); 12) Alpha (Demo); 13) Din skugga (Demo)

CD3: Isola (1997) + Bonus tracks: 12) OWC (Live); 13) Celsius (Live)
CD4: Hagnesta Hill (1999) + Bonus tracks: 14) Inhale/Exhale (Demo)

CD5/6: B-Sidor 95-00 (2000)
CD7: Vapen & ammunition (2002) + Bonus tracks: 11) Vintervila; 12) Lämnar; 13) VinterNoll2; 14) Socker (Demo); 15) Love Undone (Demo)

CD8: Du & jag döden (2005) + Bonus tracks: 12) M; 13) Välgärninger & illdad; 14) Nihilisten; 15) Alla mot alla

CD9: The hjärta & smärta EP (2005) + Bonus tracks: 6) Nålens öga 

CD10: Tillbaka till samtiden (2007) + Bonus tracks: 12) Min värld; 13) Tick tack; 14) Det kanske kommer en förändring; 15) Ingenting (Demo); 16) Håll dit huvudt högt (Live Eskilstuna 2008)

A great career (so far) retrospective box set for a great band, with enough treats for the fans too.

Key tracks: Of the bonus material, "Håll i mig", "Nålens öga", "Det kanske kommer en förändring"

Following the closure of one chapter and the start of a new one in their career, Kent continued to avoid releasing any kind of a standard greatest hits package, and instead celebrated the milestone with a box set collecting together the first decade and a half of their career: the evolution from scrappy angst-rock wannabes to stadium-sized hit makers and stylistic chameleons stubbornly doing exactly what their instincts told. I managed to score this suspiciously cheap in nearly brand new condition, and I still consider that as one of the best music deals I’ve come across when it comes to getting your money’s worth.

Part of the box set experience is the physical wonder, and the Kent box ticks this pretty well. The overall design is minimalistally sleek and stylish rather than lavish and glamorous: the ten CDs are stored a sleek, compact box within a slipcase, and the discs have their own slipcases that feature minor re-designs of the original cover art to create a shared aesthetic within the box. It's not a box set that may not particularly wow in presentation, but it looks and feels just right for the band and their general restraint. The obligatory companion booklet is pleasantly thick and informative: you’ll need to brush up on your Swedish to read through the band’s chronological and often irreverent take on their own career path as each era gets a quick behind-the-scenes glance, and given Kent aren't exactly reknown for talking to the press, the information here is fan gold. Together with other interesting trivia e.g. setlist samples across the band's history, it's a solid retrospective and a great backdrop for what matters the most, i.e. the music.

I've reviewed the albums separately and you can find the links to the individual reviews in the tracklist so there’s little point in repeating myself - the gist is, by 2008 Kent had become a great band who had been responsible of plenty of great albums and classic songs, with a few wobbles along the way  Thus, from a fan perspective the main hook here will be the bonus material, and it's much better than some of the tracklist initially might read as. The b-sides for the first four albums were already collected in B-Sidor 95-00 which is included here anyway, and so the first half’s somewhat scarce bonus material mainly focuses on demos and live cuts - but don't let that think they're not something worthwhile. The big snag are the handful of recordings from Kent’s early incarnations Jones och Giftet and Havsänglar, and they are shockingly good - the recording quality is shoddy but the early 90s alternative/indie sound is great and as songs they are more interesting from an arrangement and melodic perspective than most of the 1995 debut album. It's actually weird how the band almost regressed from their initial versions when they started recording their proper debut album (based on these carefully selected excerpts), and if the debut had more songs like "Håll i mig" I'd be singing a different tune about it. 

 

 

The other demos have been selected carefully to show aspects that haven’t been heard in public before, and they aren't just scruffy versions of familiar songs as one might expect. A handful of Isola era songs look to have been originally conceived much earlier and so the demo for "Saker man ser" sounds far more intimate when featuring just Joakim Berg and his drum machine, and the demo for “Din skugga” has none of the studio version's guitar walls and instead has an (synth-)orchestral backing that echoes the 2009 single "Hjärta". The later demos follow suite, with "Socker" being similarly intimate to "Saker man ser" but now with an entire section of lyrics that were scrapped from the final version (we finally a get title drop!) and "Ingenting" driving in the style change as even the home demo goes all in on the electronic flourishes. The rest of the bonus material for the first four albums revolves around the band’s ill-advised attempt at cracking the English market: the live recordings of "OWC" and "Celsius" are the English versions of the songs, and you also have demos for the previously unreleased “Inhale/Exhale” and later on “Love Undone” (an English version of Vapen & ammunition’s “Duett”). The new songs recorded for the English version of Hagnesta Hill haven’t been included (one of the box set’s very few exclusions), but the English material that is presented proves really strongly how much Berg struggles with singing in English with his practically incomprehensible enunciation, and I genuinely do not think we are missing anything from hearing less of it. If anyone ever wishes Kent would sing in English so they could understand it, just point them to these songs as a counter-point.

Nonetheless, the albums from Vapen & ammunition onwards get inarguably more rewarding with the bonus material as the box set acts as a chance to compile all the b-sides and non-album singles from these periods together. There are some great songs among those: all four of the Du & jag döden b-sides are practically essential to any fan of the album as they retain both the sound and the quality of the record, and the beautifully deep and atmospheric "Det kanske kommer en förändring" is a stunningly good scene-setter, lush in rich keyboards that coat Berg's voice in distant dreaminess. The non-album singles, the Rock Band favourite "VinterNoll2" with its urgent guitar energy and the wistfully ethereal "Nålens öga", would have been real album highlights had they ever appeared on any, and this is the only release outside the actual singles where you can find them. There's also one brand new song in form of a live version of "Håll dit huvudt högt", which was never recorded in studio and so this is the only time it ever appears in Kent's discography. Given how Kent-by-numbers it is that's no real surprise and making it one of the box set's selling points feels rather rough, but it's still a thoroughly enjoyable song: a dictionary example of a song that introduces literally nothing new to the band who wrote it (some of the melodies are so familiar I had to check they weren't circulated to other songs), but the familiar ingredients create an enjoyable, if a very safe, tune.

The long and short of this is that if you're still stuck in the CD era, Box 1991 - 2008 is a great way to get hold of a little over the first half of Kent's back catalogue (if you're even able to easily find this anymore). If you're a big enough fan to consider getting the box even if you own everything already, then the bonus material is worth it for the latter day b-sides alone, alongside the genuinely interesting demos. Kent have always done their utmost best to avoid cheap retrospectives (even the compilation that did arrive after they called it a day is so irrational that it feels like intentionally flipping the bird), and the box set reflects that well, with clear care to attention in place and not just chucking any old recordings as blatant fan grabs to listen to once and forget immediately. I don't think my average rating for the albums will quite match the rating for this box, but that extra boost is for the full package and the value it has. It acts like a real history tour, told in music - and so, I give my eternal kudos to whoever priced this at around €30 within months from release at my then-local record shop.

Rating: 9/10