I’ve developed a strange affection for this unusual hybrid blend of electronic dance music and, widely ranging over musical styles, pop rock from the 70s, 80s and 90s. On various songs, such as “Hey Brother” and the habit-forming “Wake Me up” (my favorite track), there’s a hillbilly or country vocal twang that I usually can’t stand. As interpreted here, the music evokes The Hunger Games.
Soul infuses “Addicted to You”, “Lay Me Down” and “Long Road to Hell.” Classical strings and orchestral-backed beats take over on “Heart Upon My Sleeve”, which reminded me of the score for The Bourne Identity, so maybe I’ve just seen too many movies, but maybe these songs, made by a young Swedish disc jockey named Avicii if I’m correct about that, suggest stories in some particular sort of way. I tend to think it’s the latter, and the best songs are for me the most dramatic (sample 11 tracks on iTunes here) such as the ethereally yet cold and detached “Dear Boy”, raspy and piano-laced “Liar Liar” and the forementioned anthem for the young and lonely, “Wake Me Up.”
But there’s plenty to get you going on the mat and treadmill if not quite rolling around elsewhere including nods and influences to and by electronically-driven artists such as Yaz, Black Box, Kate Bush, Anne Clarke, Depeche Mode and Patrick Hernandez’s “Born to be Alive”.