Kings Of Convenience: Quiet Is The New Loud on CD

Kings Of Convenience, a Norwegian duo comprising Erland Oye and Eirik Glambek Boe (both “O”s have that Scandanavian strike-through, which isn’t readily accessible on a keyboard), have made one of the most irresistible pop records of recent times with Quiet Is The New Loud.

An appropriate title, despite its rather Belle & Sebastian-esque leanings, since the 12 tracks here are a beautiful collection of gentle acoustic and electric guitar songs which keep the volume most definitely towards the side marked “hushed”.

Strongly evoking Simon & Garfunkel on the opening “Winning A Battle, Losing The War”, the blend of harmonies is disarmingly lovely, as is the tune itself. It might not be the most revolutionary and modern approach, but the purity of vocals, rhythm-free music and production creates a spellbinding experience.

The rest of Quiet Is the New Loud continues in a similar vein, occasionally adding some drums and extra instrumentation but always allowing the central vocal/guitar format to carry the song, rather than the other way around.

They even get away with splitting one of the songs into two (differently titled) halves, the second section cropping up some 3 tracks later. Such is the easy flow of the record, reprising an earlier moment does not jar like it could have done.

Cynics will no doubt dub this bedsit or student music, and while it may be true that the album will appeal to those audiences, it has a universal appeal. It’s entirely posisble that even listeners who are familiar with the 60s folk-rock acts who Kings Of Convenience so evocatively resemble would find it hard to resist these gorgeous songs.

Using a Studer analogue 24-track 2-inch tape machine during recording obviously helped create the *authentic* feel – it certainly must be responsible for the music’s inherent warmth. However, unlike say Lenny Kravitz, the results don’t have that air of carefully aping a bygone era.

To name any highlights is nigh on impossible – there are simply no weak links whatsoever. At 45 minutes some would claim it’s rather short, but this kind of music was never designed to be drawn out over an hour, or be stretched across more than a dozen tracks. Quite Is The New Loud‘s running time is a perfect length in this instance.

Kings Of Convenience would not, on the strength of this album at least, appear to be precious shoe-gazing literary types – although the sleeve might give that exact impression.

Quite Is The New Loud is one for those times when something mellow is the order of the day.