Twelve years is an eternity. Anna Brønsted went through a crisis that never ended. She stopped making music and couldn’t get anything out of the things that used to bring her joy. She only recognized her own merry-go-round of thoughts, saw nothing but darkness. Your new album is called “Blind” – and it’s a feel-good record! Just kidding. Piano, Waber synths and spoken word fragments herald the tour de force. “The heart is a muscle that works like a pump,” we are informed. “You mustn’t believe what your thoughts are telling you.” The sounds are timid and fragile, spread out in large reverberation rooms, are amplified in this way: the gently beaten drums, the touched piano, the introspective, fragile singing.
The sounds are timid and fragile, spread out in large reverberation rooms and are thus amplified
The best songs are the ones where the wide sonic space is narrowed a bit and the instruments don’t have as much room to spread out and lose substance. For example, the wind instruments on the single “Fallen” are great, opening the piece warmly and full of character. Too bad that the verse consists of directionless whispered sentences. The chorus is catchy again: Brønsted rhymes “Jesus” with “pieces” as only a Scandinavian can.
Overall, the dream-pop aesthetic levels the songs more than it enhances their mood. If something sticks through the sauce – a trumpet, a drum note, a change of key – the album suddenly comes alive. Brønsted recorded the songs live, with a small band, and it’s when you can feel that immediacy, like on the haunting soul ballad ‘Crown’, that’s when the record is at its most compelling. Also poignant is “Words” (opened by horns again), with Brønsted singing a beautiful melody in which she lets her voice first rise and then fall, a melody that mirrors the sadness of the lyrics: “Now all our dreams have sailed away/ There are no words left to say.”
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