[size=+1]Fever Ray
Fever Ray
Mar. 2009[/size]
When the Knife released Silent Shout in 2006, they revolutionised dance music. Granted, the revolution was short-lived (no other act could live up to that piece of work), but the combination of spine-tinglingly creepy vocal modulations (and lyrics) mixed with the thumping bass and ecstasy of traditional dance music was a fascinating and deeply enthralling mix that captivated many a listener. With Fever Ray, Karin Dreijer, one half of the Knife, offers us a shockingly personal glimpse into her mind and neuroses stripped (mostly) of the dance beats that populated the Knife's two albums and creates a sort of electronic singer-songwriter's record.
The mood is set from the start with opener “If I Had a Heart.” Over a monotonous bass lurking deep in the mix Dreijer sings “If I had a heart, I could love you. If I had a voice, I could sing” in that same pitch shifted voice used to such great effect on the Knife's records. This is a night time record full of dark and brooding songs, often times claustrophobic in nature as on the nearly suffocating "Concrete Walls."
The use of vocal modifiers on the record allows Dreijer to play a cast of different characters yet still maintain the sense that they are all one, different pieces of her personality, worries, and insecurities given voice, and this is the greatest strength of the record. More than on any of her previous work, this internal dialogue is intimately appealing and engaging especially when different voices are paired together. On “Dry and Dusty” Dreijer's down-shifted vocals take the lead and the pseudo-baritone keeps the song grounded, steady. When she sings “Never leave me, walk close behind me,” it is oddly comforting. Like a withered and dead branch hanging over a swirling river it is both off putting yet safe. Later in the song, Dreijer's unfiltered vocals sing back up before the filtered gives way to a sense of desperation when she sings “Work as I've been told, in return I get money. Soft feet in the hall, and I long for every moment,” before falling back on the relative comfort of the filtered voice.
To that end, Fever Ray came about after the birth of Dreijer's second child, and images of childhood “nostalgia” and insecurities about rearing a child are all over this record. The aforementioned “Dry and Dusty” covers the latter and standout track “When I Grow Up” the former. With “When I Grow Up” Dreijer doesn't idealise childhood like so many twee pop bands, instead she reinvisions childhood with much more trepidation. The lyrics are filled with hopes and dreams, being a lumberjack, living by the sea, but they are always tempered by a sense of waiting and unfulfillment. Over a simple drumbeat with some synth flourishes in the background and a repeating guitar line her voice takes on another level of desperation and desire and longing for something, anything, for the future.
Much has been made of the vocals thus far, but that is not to say the music itself is not diverse and interesting. The Caribbean rhythm on “Triangle Walks” is intoxicating, and Dreijer has the honour of being the one person to make synthesised pan flutes into an addictive hook on “Keep the Streets Empty for Me.” Ultimately, though, the album is very unified in tone: that is, dark and brooding with a few flourishes here and there. This can make listening to the entire album a daunting task, but the moments of lightness work and keep it engaging up through the final track, the spectacular “Coconut.” If this record is to be treated as a night time album, “Coconut” perfectly captures that moment where the sun just starts to grey up the night sky. It's that sigh of relief upon lasting through another night. When Dreijer sings “Lay back with a big cigar,” she has accepted and come to terms with all of the internal strife and commentary from the previous nine tracks and come out on top, letting the synth strings finish up the album calmly, contentedly.
