A plaintive banjo plucks more emotively with each repetition—each line a sad story or fond memory that bears retelling. Punctuations of glockenspiel ping here and there and a voice enters, timid and tired. Though your ears say “Americana,” the origin is Malmö, Sweden.
Antithetical to the current crop of slaphappy Swedish indie pop, Amandine’s second LP, Solace in Sore Hands, sounds like strain, like the hard-up ballads of Jason Molina that occasionally break into a scruffy kind of hope.
Cymbal crashes on “Chores of the Heart” wake up ears like a fist on the bar while the wallowing narration of vocalist Olof Gidlöf dotes on tired eyes and long waits. The clouds part and Amandine do brighten up with the harmonica and trumpets of “Silver Bells” or “Standing in Line,” and listening becomes less taxing.
Gidlöf oscillates between seeming like a needy friend who rarely cracks a smile and spends most of the time telling you his troubles and a sly romantic, dropping lines as sweet as a love-struck Nietzsche singing, “Honey, distance brings us closer/ Honey, hardship makes us strong.”
Banjo, violin, piano, guitar, and percussion nimbly assist Gidlöf’s laments in a way that is impressive but just a bit too pretty; heartache and weariness, tenants of Americana, don’t usually sound this well orchestrated. If sadness were always this conveniently pleasant, we’d have no use for being happy.
– Kristen Grayewski
Amandine (Fatcat Records)