“Late ’90s trance synths with a gentle amount of late ’10s tropical hints here and there”
Tim: A Swedish dance act that we haven’t covered anywhere near as much as we should have done, as I think you’ll agree after hearing this.
Tom: I couldn’t tell you what decade that’s from. You’re right, though, it’s a good track.
Tim: Well there it is: we’ve late ’90s trance synths with a gentle amount of late ’10s tropical hints here and there so it doesn’t sound dated. And I for one absolutely love it. A lot of one great genre, a small amount of a fairly good genre, and a lovely vocal on top of it.
Tom: I can’t remember it after listening, but it’s the sort of thing that’d sit happily in the middle of a dance playlist. There’s nothing wrong with it, and by my standards that’s an endorsement.
Tim: I’ve no complaints at all, even at four and a half minutes long. It’s lovely.
“It’d be doing this a massive disservice to call it anything like formulaic.”
Tim: So here’s fun: according to the e-mail, it’s “a song for every individual who feels that they don’t fit in within the norms in society,” and the video “captures how society can judge individuals based on structures that some of us don’t feel comfortable with, and not respect everyone’s right to live their own life, in their own way”.
Tom: That’s an incredibly clunky sentence, but I think I get what they mean.
Tim: Regardless of whether or not you think that’s sanctimonious guff, the song does at least deserve a few minutes before any out of hand dismissal.
Tim: The main reason I say that is that there are some very distinct areas in that song; technically they’re along the same verse/chorus 1/chorus 2 that is the standard nowadays, but it’d be doing this a massive disservice to call it anything like formulaic.
Tom: There are some parts of this track — generally the quiet, instrumental parts — where it doesn’t work at all for me. But as you said, it’s worth sticking through it, because bloody hell the rest of it’s good.
Tim: Throughout a lot of it, it’s a difficult listen – you might want something more upbeat, or want it to hurry up a bit – but it’s also somewhat hypnotic, and despite the five minute length, with nothing new happening in the final minute, I don’t want to switch it off.
Tom: I think one of the reasons is that I just haven’t heard this sort of synth arrangement for a while: it’s a bit 90s-trance, and I thoroughly enjoy that.
Tim: They say, finishing up, that “Stockholm Noir will continue spreading the darkness to the world, and recruit all the dark souls out there that feel they don’t fit in the scene,” and I think I feel the same way after reading that as I do after hearing the song: slightly downbeat, but still wanting more.
