Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street

Kings of Convenience
Riot on an Empty Street


I reviewed a prior album by KoC, and was not terribly impressed but felt it was not without its strong points. Little has changed, but they are trying with small changes to make this a step up in their quest for indie pop cred.

The opener, Homesick, is like a junior-league 60s folk, as is much of the rest of the album. It's decent, but has the same trappings their last album did; overly earnest or pseudo-ironic meandering. Cayman Islands starts in the same fashion, but improves as the strings kick in, giving some sense of dynamics to what would have been an otherwise pedestrian exercise in melancholy. Know How is a breathy complement to anyones early John Mayer collection (Mayer's latest trio outings show him to be a much different beast -- to everyone's benefit).

The album only really picks up when they get out of their "Tribute To Hello Darkness My Old Friend by way of Oslo" mode, as they do on the track Sorry or Please, which adds strings, piano and drums. Misread starts out as a weak bossa-inflected go, but grows on you. The sole single-ready track is also the premier slice of songcraft; the uptempo, whimsy-filled I'd Rather Dance.

There is a guest spot from Broken Social Scene vocalist Leslie Feist which may interest some.

Still somewhat mediocre, but better than a lot of agit-fluff politifolk and sappy acoustic pop junk (think Jewel's first 3 albums as a cashmere-sweater wearing airhead*)

* (...now she's a full blown pop airhead).