Tim: Starts out quiet; is in fact something of a builder.
Tom: Crikey, you’re not wrong there.
Tim: The title translates from Finnish to ‘Stranger’, though that’s in the ‘unknown person’ sense, rather than the ‘just bloody weird’ sense that the video would imply.
Tom: It is quite the video.
Tim: In fact, regarding the video, I don’t really have much time for people that wear such ridiculous levels of floral clothing, straight-up flowers and mystical headgear, and prance around doing curious wavy things with their hand, and end up floating around in front of the Doctor Who opening titles, mainly because I’m a bit worried they’re trying to put some sort of spell on me.
Tom: Now that implies you’ve had dealings with people who’ve done that before. What kind of communes have you been hanging out with?
Tim: I’m going to ignore (a) that question and (b) the load of hippy nonsense that is the video and that way I can concentrate on the really rather wonderful track.
As I said, it’s called Stranger, but beyond that I’ve got no idea what it’s about. I can speculate – instincts from the video would suggest it’s a ‘meet a new person, go and do magic rituals with them in the forest’ (and it’s 50-50 as to whether or not that’d be a euphemism) – but to be honest I’m not that bothered because I just love the music.
Tom: It’s one of the best examples of a ‘builder’ track that I’ve seen in a long while: listen to how the synths slowly join behind the guitar in those first thirty seconds. It ramps beautifully.
Tim: The way it builds from a slightly dull start to a proper, almost orchestral sounding banger of a second chorus in just a minute and a half without skipping a beat is, as far as I’m concerned, quite, quite brilliant. That it then carries that on for another ninety seconds is better yet, and here I think the fake ending middle eight is a lovely choice, because you only just get time to think “what, already?” before it’s returned in all its glory for a few more rounds. I love this track. A lot.
Tom: As do I.