Review Summary: Amason's Flygplatsen EP is a confident and clarifying follow-up to 2015's "Sky City". How much longer can this group fly under the radar?
Remember that time those Swedish cops, in an embarrassing display of humanity and pragmatism, took down an aggressor on a NYC subway? It seemed so second nature. So effortless. Well ***, apparently there is something in the water. Swedish band “The Amazing” refers to music in their bio as “the thing we never talk about.” Amason's Pontius Winnberg recalled of their unsung LP “Sky City”, "Whatever happens, happens." There's not too much brain activity engaged... It's not very thought out at all, which is nice.” Whatever the shortcomings of Amason's debut, an almost supernatural display of base musical instinct is indisputable.
When “Sky City” dropped in January of 2015, it received a somewhat disappointing response from critics. This felt mostly due to the stigma attached to the band as being a “supergroup.” (Amason includes Dungen's Gustav Ejstes, Miike Snow's Pontius Winnberg, as well as Amanda Bergman of “Idiot Wind.”) The album was described by NPR's Bob Boilen as “replicating the intimacy and care of a great mixtape” due to its poly-vocal presentation. Guardian cried pastiche, deciding in lieu of a review to write a track by track comparison to Fleetwood Mac. Another smooth, boy-girl-boy-girl band who digs back-beats. Get it?
Cynicism aside, “Sky City” was a refreshing backdoor addition to indie rock. Understated synth hooks peppered a long players worth of smooth, hooky, verse-chorus-verse songs. Dungen fans got to revel in a more finely-hammered presentation of Gustav Ejstes, and listeners ignorant to the charms of Amanda Bergman thanked their lucky stars for what sounded like the second coming of Feist (their voices are at times un-differentiable.) The album tautly draws a noirish world of its own and is full of subtle ear-worms (“Velodrome”, “Yellow Moon”) that age just enough to warrant repeated listens before ultimately setting in their mold.
And yet, as a whole, the album smacks of restraint. So the question was decent if not unavoidable: how seriously could a contemporary audience take the commitment on the part of these band members to using Amason as a lasting outlet? Well, Flygplatsen would represent a step towards answering that question.
Amason's clearest strength lies as a vehicle for Amanda Bergman, whose voice has really been allowed to blossom here. On the eponymous opening ballad, they at once abandon the cool, democratic arrangements of Sky City, which so often hemmed Bergman's expressive voice into a big electro-pop or an almost 90's trip-hop role. The vaguely eastern melody of Flygplatsen's chorus shines through an attentive accompaniment, somehow liberated by a less claustrophobic arrangement. The bright guitar solo goes full on Sky Blue Sky Nels Cline. In counter-weight, we begin to hear that character from the great folk tracks Bergman's released as “Idiot Wind.” Dynamic; expressive. But now with a band.
Throughout the short EP, the band sounds comfortable with not just doing one thing, but many things, well. The long tracks deal in a variety of patient builds rather than instant-gratification. The EP's piece-de-resistance, “Tjugonde,” is an anthemic, crescendo'd track built around a bossa drum machine and miniature pump organ. No backbeat. It creeps up slowly, towing Bergman's deft three-dimensional performance apace. On tracks like “Paradis I Krisen” (Trouble in Paradise), they nail down a newly cinematic take on their signature noir. It’s another anthemic build to nowhere, where they don’t give it away so easily; you’ve got to peer in close.
Flygplatsen is a confident step towards synthesis of a talented ensemble. Whether this is a sign that they are thinking more, or thinking less, is perhaps beyond the ken of an American listener. But the progression is clear. Both Amason’s pedigree and trajectory recall Broken Social Scene, who started in a similar position - they reaped their first two classic records capturing a “don’t think too hard” document of a crack group of musicians. Hard to find a clearer analogue of a modern super group. And yet they had a way of wearing their rag-tag identity on their sleeve. Their sound seemed to cut bravely against the grain of the 00's polished indie-pop zeitgeist. Perhaps by continuing to drive so wonderfully against the contemporary grain, Amason's position as a supergroup might count amongst its strengths rather than weaknesses.
