Loney Dear

Album review

Returning to his craft seemingly refreshed and renewed after a six-year gap, dramatic Swede Emil Svanängen revives his Loney Dear recording moniker for a self-titled sixth album. Even Svanängen's earliest records showed a preoccupation with densely layered arrangements, but the scope of his moody chamber pop appeared to have reached some sort of lush zenith on 2011's Hall Music. As beautiful as parts of that album were, it also gave the feeling of being orchestrally oversaturated. While his follow-up is by no means a sparse affair, its various pieces seem better designed to tuck neatly into the mix, creating a more spatial environment where Svanängen's miniature epics can propagate. Taking plenty of time to develop his new approach, the Jönköping native also found a new home to back his efforts, with Peter Gabriel's Real World Records imprint signing him in early 2017. The murmuring of drowsy synth tones introduces "Pun," the album's slowly building opener that soon accelerates into a polyrhythmic gallop of mysterious samples and dramatic shifts. "Humbug" follows a similar trajectory, combining icy Nordic electronica with propulsive organic percussive elements. As a synth pop balladeer, Svanängen is at his best, utilizing his high keening tenor to turn in dreamy highlights like "Isn't It You?" and the lovely closer, "There Are Several Alberts Here." His mix of wistful tenderness and cerebral darkness plays out in the songs' twists and turns as he pits Bon Iver-ian robo-soul and folk gentleness against sometimes menacing basslines and frigid atmospherics. It's an approach that agrees with him on this strong sixth effort.
© Timothy Monger /TiVo