På nordpolen

Album Review

The songs that Pelle Hallström writes as Nordpolen often deal with teenage anxiety and alienation, although non-Swedish-speaking listeners would be forgiven for missing the darker undercurrents in his work. Musically, most of På Nordpolen is about as far as you can get from melancholy, at least on the surface: bombastic, major-key chord progressions, shimmering synthesizers, soaring vocal harmonies, and big, thumping disco beats. There's something unusual, though, about the way these familiar components come together. While frequently sweeping and anthemic, the effect is far from the over the top electro-pop giddiness one might expect — instead of gloriously glammy, the songs feel uncomfortably overstuffed with emotion, ready to burst. Whether they are bursting with hope or despair, or some all-too-human combination of the two, is harder to say without recourse to the lyrics. The name Nordpolen (North Pole) suggests both utter loneliness and holiday cheer (although, strictly speaking, that's an American association, not a Swedish one) and, strangely enough, these epic, enraptured tracks seem like appropriate soundtracks to either. Structurally, Nordpolen's tunes are just as unpredictable and hard to pin down — a stripped-down piano-and-voice passage might suddenly give way to churning synthesizer house, or vice versa, though as a whole it all feels relatively fluid. Indeed, for all the complexity of the arrangements, it's a little surprising how much the album all runs together: the pulsating single "Skimret" and the catchy closing title track offer the most resonant hooks, while the sweetly subdued "Under" and "Reglerna Har Ändrats" offer a respite from all that pounding, but not much else distinguishes itself, though it's all enjoyable enough as it passes. The album was co-produced by the Tough Alliance, and it shares some undeniable similarities with their work and — even more so — the sunny haziness of labelmates Air France, mixing and matching synths and beats with swirls of acoustic guitar, vaguely tropical percussion, and less identifiable sonic detritus (strings, accordions, sound effects). But while it offers an intriguing new twist on the idiosyncratic Sincerely Yours aesthetic, På Nordpolen is ultimately not quite as compelling as the label's previous releases, either in terms of pop songcraft or atmospheric evocation. ~ K. Ross Hoffman, Rovi