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.
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