I’ve been a fan since I don’t know when…2001, maybe?  ‘Quiet is the new loud’, anyway.  They have always occupied the area in my musical leanings that was vacated by EBTG when they went all ‘dance’ and filled it admirably.  It is just that the quantity was always lacking.  Imagine my surprise today then, at the discovery of new product from the Bergen (that the place, not the bread) boys….


“Declaration of Dependence” is every bit as good as it’s predecessor, “Riot On An Empty Street” and I think with a few more listens it will really shine – the stand out tracks are “Mrs Cold” (how clever  – a song with no percussion/drums that makes you want to dance?) and “Boat Behind” – a sort of Cockney Rebel-esque mix of football-terrace chorus and Stephane Grapelli violin – genius.  Norwegians doing French music…who’d have thunk?

I love the whole understatedness of the production – the almost nonchalant  way the songs seem to be constructed.  And when you play it through headphones,  “My ship isn’t pretty” is so intimate, you could swear that they are there with you in the room. 

There is only one thing missing here.  I can’t find it on Vinyl.  Yet.

Buy it.