The duo of Erlend ??ye and Eirik Glambek B??e, who have drawn innumerable comparisons to the beloved Simon and Garfunkel, have released their third full-length album. The two men first met at a geography competition as kids in Bergen, Norway and began playing songs together at the age of 16.
During previous years, prior to 2004's Riot, ??ye released a solo album, entitled Unrest and also experimented in electronica, both as a DJ and a performer. He was the vocalist for The Whitest Boy Alive, an electronica-based side project, which released albums in 2006 and 2009. Given ??ye's success in his electronic endeavors, many fans expected the new album from his original duo to be quite different than what has come to be expected from the Kings of Convenience. Instead, the group spent five years honing their simple, rich, melodic sound and came out with perhaps their best album yet.
Using nothing but two acoustic guitars, the occasional piano or viola and their soothing Norwegian voices, this duo manages to create simple and understated ballads that capture themes from the unfortunate complications of love to the hypocrisy of religious morality. Never straying too far into joy or sadness, the songs can be surprisingly painful and hopeful at the same time.
The album starts with the slow, melodic "24-25," which eases the listener in with soft guitar, vocal harmony and a lovely lead guitar refrain. The two voices together make one rich, complex sound, ??ye's darkly textured and B??e's sweet and slightly higher.
The second track, "Mrs. Cold," is a catchy, upbeat tune with rhythmic guitar picking leading the song. It has more of a beach and surfing vibe, with a refrain that goes "Ok, I get it / Ok, I see / You were fronting because / You feel vulnerable around me." Many of the songs on this album focus on the fraught communication between lovers and the problems that ensue.
Another highlight is "Boat Behind," which was released as a single just over a month before the album came out. It opens with a viola above acoustic guitars. The song has one of the catchiest refrains of any of the duo's songs: a repeat of "Ohohohohoh, I could never belong to you." The band continues to play with ideas of dependence and ownership all throughout the album, such as in "Rule My World," which seems to be an outright critique of a lover and her religion.
The album slows down and darkens considerably in the second half, starting with "My Ship Isn't Pretty," which sounds almost like a haunting sea shanty. "Riot on an Empty Street," which borrows the title from their previous album, contains the painful lines, "My life, it's a riot / I'm climbing barricades / In empty streets at night." The duo shows a more darkly ruminative side at the end of the album with songs like "Second to Numb" and "Scars on Land," which deal with themes of death and the loss of innocence.
With minimalistic sounds and lyrics, this band never does more than it must to create lovely songs. They even show a deadpan sense of humor on their Myspace page, which in the "Sounds like . . . " section of the profile reads, "Music your parents like too." It is no wonder their beautiful voices, "good guy" vibes and simple charm have garnered fans around the world.
