We don’t post on Sundays, so please accept this morsel of scripture today…
[Video][Website]
[5.18]
[4]
Iain Mew: I generally find Annika Norlin’s music to be well-crafted in a traditionalist kind of way but completely elevated by the depth and humour of her lyrics. It’s why Annika’s other group Sakert! didn’t quite work for me until the songs were På Engelska. “I Was Jesus” initially struck me as biting off more than it could chew lyrically, but leans more on the music than most to get past that. It develops her way with using pop bounce to make bitter words sting all the more, not in an ostentatious “check out the irony on this!” way but in the way that everything seems so sweet that the despair gets to sink in slow and deep. Here the warm fuzz of bass and synths set against her understated vocal helps power the themes of powerlessness, as she sets up heroic scenarios to bring down with bleak punchlines of her actions being unvalued by the sexist world.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Optimistic and rueful, with enough detailing and a vocal styling that is on the right side of storytelling. I liked when the work is smaller and personal (that song about losing her virginity when X played is a continual Darnielle-style favourite), but this does what it needs to do.
[7]
Ashley Ellerson: If Jesus were a woman, she might just be Annika Norlin (or some other lady who also sings about being Jesus). In all truth, Norlin is pretty accurate in regards to how the world would treat a female Jesus/Gandhi/Martin Luther King. Society tends to look up to more heroes than heroines because women have to do more to earn the title and respect. Poppy and relevant, “I Was Jesus” makes you clap and harmonize while simultaneously bumming you out over the fact that you’ll never be Jesus. Sigh.
[8]
Alfred Soto: It begins with a basic rhythm and chordal pattern, wrapped in a purring organ line, familiar to Velvets fans. Tripping only occasional on the enjambments, she makes the choral punch line work as the guitars and background vocals get louder. In other words, she barely gets away with it.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: She’s going for grad-student-clever, but comes across more as Ida Maria by way of King Missile. Offensively pretentious lyrics.
[2]
Patrick St. Michel: Great drive, but the words sort of just mush together, which doesn’t work when you are trying to convey a message.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: Purgatory is a land where the suffering of man is processed through a fuzz box, drones for miles and miles, repeatedly pipes some sort of insightful observation, and makes you cry. Yet even your sobs just form into the monotonous trenchant plod, as nobody goes anywhere, much like this diabolical song.
[2]
Brad Shoup: The backing vocals remind me of those in Liz Phair’s “Never Said,” but where hers ascend, Hello Saferide’s stay in base camp. Which is nuts, because the song’s nuts, a nice little drone-pop messianic fantasy wherein Jesus and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are inhabited by this fey daydreamer. I can only state my official wish that Nigel Blackwell had taken a pass at the text.
[5]
Luisa Lopez: A beautifully forgettable little song whose sound is more important than its words, and whose words are full of sad sighing smallness. A song that knows never to underestimate the panacea of a good bass line, anchoring us in the Mediterranean sea. A song that comes barreling happily through the sunset and mumbles pleasant nonsense ’til it falls asleep.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: People don’t light a lamp and hide it under a bowl. (Matthew 5:14) Nor do they write provocative lyrics and hide them under loud fuzz. (Jukebox 4)
[4]