The Knife – Silent Shout (album review)

The new The Knife-album has leaked and I’m absolutely in love with it. They’ve basically taken the best from the first cd, and the most original from “Deep Cuts” and taken them into a new, dark direction. And I must say I really like that direction.

As I might’ve mentioned before, “Deep Cuts” is one of my favourite albums ever, so my expectations for this album were very high. And even though “Silent Shout” didn’t top “Deep Cuts” (I didn’t quite think it would either – that’s like mission impossible), I still probably will consider this one of the best albums of 2005 at the end of the year.

The album, even though it includes vocals on all tracks, has big electro-parts of the songs which show that they’ve taken a step away from the pop music into electronica. Even though I’m normally not a fan of electronica, I still like this because they’ve done something innovative out of it. What I’m trying to say is that it sounds nothing like other electronica does.

I also think they’ve become a bit j-pop, which is very interesting! Karin’s voice has also been a bit “Japanese” but on this album they’ve also taken the production to that direction too, at parts of the album. That’s a brilliant step as I love j-pop.

My favourite song on the album has to be ‘Marble House’, which also features the androgyny electro-god Jay-Jay Johansson on vocals. The melody is very infectious, and along with the philosophic lyrics and inventive production it has great chances of becoming the new ‘Heartbeats’.

The Knife feat. Jay-Jay Johansson – Marble House

Other favourites on the album are the energetic ‘Like A Pen’ and the nightmare-before-christmas-ish ‘One Hit’ which features some scary “ho ho ho’s”. Lyric-wise the best song probably is ‘Forest Families’ which you just need to hear for yourself to understand, it’s brilliant.

If you’re a “mainstream” pop listener you’ll probably not like this album, but if you want to hear something new and innovative, this album is something for you.

Oh, and don’t let the first single ‘Silent Shout’ fool you! I consider it to be one of the weakest tracks on the album, and it doesn’t sound anything like the other tracks either.

posted by Chrille @ 1/26/2006