Fredrik – Na Na Ni Review
Sweden’s indie rock scene is quite strong and I always tend to find a band/artist that I seem to be interested in. Fredrik’s album Na Na Ni was just given a re-release stateside, and I’ve been given a chance to listen to its entirety for the last few weeks. Fredrik’s music is experimental folk (a subgenre that is slowly becoming one of my favorites – however broad). With the use of a cello, banjo and accordion among their set, Fredrik is able to create a variety of sounds that encompasses ambience and post-rock elements that reeled me in.
The album kicks off with “Black Fur” with the “oohs” from multiple vocalists. I actually find this song too slowly developing lyrically. The next track is much better, it’s a little faster paced in general and it contains much more normal singing. The next track “Hei Hei” is a simple instrumental track, which sounds like a banjo. The song is good but it instills doubts in the overall flow of the album. Three vastly different songs, variability sometimes is a luxury a lot of bands don’t have but in this case, it may be a little spoiled.
My favorite song on the album is “1986”, in this case Fredrik’s singing is absolutely wonderful. I’m not going to say the rest of the alb um wanes but the latter half of the album are mainly lyricless and while musically it’s really good, Fredrik’s vocals just do not deserve to be wasted.
Individually each song is very good but the album in general does not equal the total sum of its parts. It just feels so different to hear a song like Alina’s place and 1986 (which is more like a soft pop song) to a full on instrumental. Granted a lot of the time, some artists get this right…I just felt that it didn’t work for me after listening to the album in full for a few times.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Still each song is great individually.
Tags: album
I loved this LP like it was nobody’s business.