Customer Reviews

Strangely Beautiful

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This is a pleasantly comfortable album, something that will send you into a warm, relaxed state. It is such low-key pop that it will cover any bits of worry and frenzy with a soft blanket.

Johan's simple music, a mix of guitar and keyboard, complements Karolina's sugary, light voice quite nicely. Her vocals actually remind me of early Dolores O'Riordan from the Cranberries, except with a slight Swedish accent. I like all the songs, but my favorites are "I Wasn't Much of a Fight" and "The Next Step You'll Take".

Swedish female vocalist whispers melancholy background music. Sometimes the melodies are pronounced enough to be more than that so that it sounds like the Cardigans, but otherwise a good example of seamless "chill out" music that one listens to. Fans of this genre will want to check out Morcheeba, Departure Lounge, Sweet Trip, Color Filter, Airiel, Brazaville, Gentle People, Ronderlin and LeMans.

Strangely Beautiful was my first exposure to the Swedish duo comprising of Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt. And it's been a sweet albeit mildly apprehensive journey ever since. A friend once told me that the quieter you become the more people will strain to listen to you, and that's part of Club 8's allure.

Their 5th album opens with my favorite all-time Club 8 track: "As Lights Go Out" - a superbly crafted mid-tempo pop song about the erosion of time and it's effect on fading love. The lush synthesizer drone wraps around a listener like a luxuriant coat before Komstedt's now established reverberating hushed vocals enters. Angergård's tremeloed guitar follows, emanating ethos against Club 8's arch-enemy, the ever advancing time.

Vulnerable, honest, a touch of neediness born from doubt, this song gently opens the vista into Club 8's world.

"What Shall We Do Next" picks up the torch and follows the same tempo leading into the lines "we want someone to long for, we want them here, all we can strive for, we want it now, and when it's here, we don't know what to do next."

"I Wasn't Much Of A Fight" gains momentum. Though drama is sung about, small musical elements weave together to make a polish pop song: minimal trumpets, expertly placed tambourines, doubled vocals in radio voice, all around a whispering voice.

In the unique style that only Club 8 can evoke, "Stay By My Side" is a slow love song of longing, sung with a saccharine sweetness. Listen carefully however, and you will hear these devilishly cynical lines:

"stay by my side
as we hope for someone to show
don't leave my side
though it's not what we hoped for

you may take what you need when you want to
and use me up if you wish
feelings stay the same as i'm asleep"

(Stay by My Side)

"Cold Hearts" moves in a stately Bergmanesque procession towards an even slower, ruminative short acoustic guitar instrumental "Between Waking and Sleeping." The latter is a track that serves as a prelude to the fugue that follows: "This Is The Morning," a wonderful and gorgeously fleeting acoustic song lead by Angergård, joined by Komstedt.

"This Is The Morning" not only shows the musical daring of Angergård: the pause after the lines "follow the stars of the light" is held longer than is safe, until one almost thinks the song is over (classical fans will be reminded of Claudio Arrau's heroic pause in the intro in Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto or Ruth Laredo's first movement in Rachmaninov's Variations on a Theme of Chopin), but it also displays one of the most endearing qualities of Club 8; their songs, like Swedish design philosophy, exhibits chaste economy, never needing to be longer than is necessary. There is never a moment of overindulgence where the same lines are repeated ad nauseam.

"The Next Step You'll Take" carries their signature tradition of coming off like some cheery Mary Tyler Moore soundtrack with the jarring lyrics:

"we'll look out for you.
thirty two
it's not so young here...

surely time will come to an end soon
but it's still on your side
and everything must come to an end here
but you can still leave gracefully"

(from The Next Step You'll Take)

"The Beauty Of The Way We Are Living" is pure popcraft; paternal, concerned, benevolent, inviting listeners into their accommodating club. "Saturday Night Engine" is a raucous lo-fi rock piece featuring Angergård doing a strangely beautiful Swede Cockney in radio voice.

"We Move In Silence" features a plangent organ above the band, leaving us with the final closing admonishment that until the next Club 8 album, time is steadily gnawing at the gates:

"by doing it right now
we're not counting the time
and we won't measure
what we feel inside."

i don't know what they put in that scandanavian water, but the region puts out some of the finest pop music around. club 8 is another in a long line of stellar pop acts releasing stellar albums.

the follow up to the amazing 'spring came, rain fell,' sees johann and karolina more focused than on previous efforts. earlier albums were chocked tightly written pop songs, sprinkled with occasional brief experimental-sounding musical interludes. not so on 'strangely beautiful.' this, their most recent album, listens more like a greatest hits collection. it's hit after hit after hit. gone are the little snippits and present are simply great pop songs. johann, it seems, is more confident in his songwriting skills and karolina sounds like that girl you see making eyes at you from across the room, only to bolt for the door once you make your move. she doesn't have the greatest voice in the world (and that's not to say she doesn't have a great voice--it's just a bit thin, but effective) but she doesn't need to. johann's arrangements and melodies are more than enough to carry 'strangely beautiful' to beautiful heights.

like any good popmeister, johann brought some new influences to 'strangely beautiful.' while all the songs on the this album are definitely synthy/electronicky fairs, it's nice to hear the jazzy, bossanova-y influences. here's hoping their next album sees them take their music even futher.

'strangely beautiful' is probably club 8's best, most cohesive album. there's really not a dud nor a dull moment on the album. with 'spring came, rain fell' running a close second. if you area savvy pop music afficionado (and you know who you are), club 8 is your drug.