Review by Alice Neiley (4 out 5 stars

Anette Norgaard’s North is born of harsh weather and the warmth one has to have inside in order to brave it, a perfect balance of melancholy and hope for the transition out of a long winter.  The album is infused with ballads, and though only a few tracks depart from that style, this Scandinavian artist’s solo debut is anything but monotonous.  Every slow heartbreak is haunting, every up-tempo heartbeat, however infrequent, opens a new musical door and we can breathe fresh air. 

“I Go North” opens the album with eerie guitar, light piano, and a touch of violin, setting a dark, wanderlust tone to the whole compilation.  With the entrance of Norgaard’s strong vocals, the track only increases in richness—her lengthy notes seem to stretch themselves like branches over the slightly more complex movement of snare drum, piano, and snare drum.  The gorgeous strings are consistent in the background as well, but come forward at lyrical points of change—“wind is strong,” “far away from here,”  “feeling I can never go back”—as if to wake us up.  The fact that the first few notes travel up the scale on the lyrics “I go north,” is also clever, right away cementing the idea of going somewhere, even within the musical progression.  Søren Bech Madsen’s vocal presence on this track is stunning, both in harmony with Norgaard and his solo phrases.  However, his voice does register as much louder than Norgaard’s, especially at first, which introduces a mixing issue that resurfaces throughout the album, both with the balance of vocals to vocals and instruments to vocals. 

In “Did They,” for example, the lonely sound of only guitar and vocals combined with somewhat cryptic lyrics, “did they flood your heart with love and praises/did you think that it could never get worse” is magnetic, but the volume and timbre of Norgaard’s voice feels abrasive against the spare background.  On the other hand, this rough-around- the edges mixing/balance style makes the album sound rustic, much like the cultural roots of Norgaard herself.  Rustic, which is, in a nutshell, exactly the texture of the next track “Saerlig Magi,” with its crackly beginning, like an LP, as well as foreign language, sets the piece immediately in a different time and place.   In this case, the balance seems to work well because the thick layers of piano and violin support the powerful vocals and give Norgaard space for the natural cry in her voice to soar without sticking out as strained. 

Throughout the remaining tracks, at least the ballads—“It’s Actually Worse,” “If You Lay Down Your Heart,” “A Promise,” “We Walk On,” “Morgenstund”—vocals alternate between a softer, high register, and a rather forced, dramatic sound.  Solo violin brings in “If You Lay Down Your Heart,” a stunning piece with what I imagine to be the sounds of Norgaard’s Denmark home sprinkled into the chord progression.  For a while, soft, high vocals and violin proceed alone, then, piano enters to fill out the background.  The vocals soon move into mid-register, still melancholy and subdued beside the extremely focused tone of violin, but by the time the drums enter, the vocals push against the instrumentation, and, somewhat strained, are a little pitchy on the higher notes.  Though this shift in color is mostly supported by the underlay of strong piano chords, violin, and drums, the vocal drama is unnecessary (if it is, in fact, intentional), because the melodic development of the song carries it forward in a more than interesting enough way. 

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote, Do not go gentle into that good night/rage rage against the dying of the light, which seems to also be one of Anette Norgaard’s pleas as North presses toward its final track.  The most interesting pieces on the album, and probably by no coincidence the best produced, are the ones that bring about something different, something that sparks the attention among the darkness and beauty of ballads.   “Sometimes” and “Fall,” are the only tracks that arrive with a faster tempo, and  “We Walk On” and “Morgenstund,” stand out for their unique sound effects and increasing intensity, even as the album comes to its end—rage rage against the dying of the light. 

Because there’s no one listed as playing harmonica, accordion, or oboe in the liner notes, I have to assume the sound that opens “Sometimes,” which sounds like a cross between all those instruments, is electronically created.  Either way, it’s fabulous, and combined with the clapping/snapping sound that serves as percussion, introduces a beat and tone of playfulness which they lyrics later mirror in their irony “sometimes just sometimes your mine/say you’ll never be mine.”  High register backup vocals, perhaps dubbed tracks of Norgaard’s own voice add to the complexity along with snare drum for the chorus.  Her voice makes the most sense in this song, as well as “Fall”—the vocal backup builds excited harmony, and a variety of drum action gives Norgaard’s occasionally aggressive singing tendencies something to push against, something to redistribute the weight. 

The album comes to a close with “Morgenstund,” preceded by “We Walk On,” and as Dylan Thomas suggests, the journey doesn’t sound as if it will ever die.  Both of these ending tracks are driven by piano and vocals, but each include a sound, instrument, or melodic surprise that hasn’t yet been used in any other part of the album—tinkling bells and the rich backup vocals of Charlie Demos in “We Walk On,” the whistles, left to right hand atonal piano work, thunder sound effects, and vocal jumps in “Morganstund.”  Though there may be some issues to work through in terms of production for Anette Norgaard’s next project, the other inconsistencies on North seem to work in its favor.  The feeling of unresolved mystery that flows through the whole album implies that Norgaard might press forward forever into her own version of the light, one that is itself alive, undying, and getting stronger by the measure.

Artist: Anette Norgaard
Title: A North Node
Reviewed by Alice Neiley
Rating: 4 out of 5