Army Of Lovers
The Gods of Earth and Heaven

Army Of Lovers? Concept album? No, gentlemen, I'm not crazy, or at least not more than usual, and I assure you that an album like "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" can be considered as such with full dignity. Some time ago I had already had the opportunity to talk to you about Army Of Lovers, a eccentric and ingenious Swedish combo led by the volcanic Alexander Bard; although in some ways they can be placed in the europop/eurodance Scandinavian pot that was so popular in the 90s, AOL presents characteristics that are entirely unique and original, both in terms of image and musical offering, which distinctly set them apart from the likes of Aqua, Ace Of Base, and other similar, fun but totally disposable examples of bubblegum pop.

After a debut like 1990's "Disco Extravaganza," aimed exclusively at dance floors and almost entirely useless in any other context, Alexander Bard and company found success with "Massive Luxury Overdose," powered by the singles "Crucified" and "Obsession": a work that highlights all their salient features: ultra-catchy melodies filled with choirs and quasi-gothic pomposity and lyrics that mix the sacred and the profane, glamour and self-irony, stereotypes, lust, and decadence, all accompanied by a visual imagery taken to extremes, to exaggeration, to the point of crossing the border into gaudiness and becoming a witty, intelligent, and hilarious self-parody. "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" picks up exactly from these premises, adding even more majestically caricatured sounds and a more reasoned and constructed structure, like a concept album indeed; if Alice Cooper were gay and made pop-disco, he would sound more or less like this.

After the success of "Massive Luxury Overdose," the charismatic and curvaceous frontwoman Camilla Henemark left the project with the ambition of pursuing a solo career (this would be unsuccessful and she'd return shortly thereafter), but for Alexander Bard and the faithful Jean-Pierre Barda, the male face (yeah, sort of...) of the group, this didn't seem to be a problem. In fact, out with one, in with two: the very blonde Michaela Dornonville de la Cour (believe it or not, that's her real name and, even more incredibly, she boasts a distant relationship with the Swedish royal family) and Dominika Peczynski, a versatile showwoman of Polish origins, made their debut in Army Of Lovers, making AOL even more reminiscent of their progenitors and inspirations, ABBA. Presented with graphics as usual sober and moderate, "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" delivers exactly as promised by the title: a beautiful medley of lust, frivolity, decadence, demons, grand guignol, more or less cultured citations, philosophy, and spirituality. The most evident novelty compared to the past is the presence of four short intros recited on pseudo-gothic bases that further emphasize the album's aura of grandeur, among which particularly stand out "La Storia di O.", made intriguing by Dominika's East European-accented Italian, and "Chihuahuas On Parade", a hilarious parody of the spoiled girl in which Michaela solemnly declares: "When I was a little girl I would pray to God, not because I believed in God but because I wanted God to believe in me, why wait for heaven to experience glamour and beauty, I want it all and I want it now!" Rococo enrichments aside, "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" presents a certain stylistic compactness and coherence; the songs deliberately follow almost the same pattern: spoken or recited verses alternating between the three voices of the group and ultra-emphasized choral refrains, with multiple variations on the theme. The stylistic peak is reached with the hypnotic and almost disorienting electronics of "The Ballad Of Marie Curie", an original and disconcerting tribute to the famous Polish scientist, and the epic "Carry My Urn To Ukraine", full of suggestions and decadent Soviet imagery, a delightful concoction of gothic, Eastern European turbo-folk, and rap, a mix brought to the extreme by the almost cinematic, compelling crescendo of "Sebastien", while "We Are The Universe" adds a very catchy but entertaining Latin-dance base to the whole, "Blood In The Chapel" further emphasizes the parody of the grand-guignol imagery of a third-rate horror movie and "The Grand Fatigue" treats the theme of anorexia much more seriously than the dance-friendly sounds might suggest.

"Israelism" also fits perfectly within the album's canons; here on DeBaser, it has a great admirer, boycotted by those absurd charlatans at MTV and even accused of anti-Semitism by people with little sense of humor, and maybe also unaware of the Jewish origins of Jean-Pierre and Dominika, while the other two singles diverge slightly, "La Plage De Saint-Tropez", an homage to frivolity, glamour, and the sweet life, experimenting with the lively vocal interweaving typical of early ABBA and "I Am", with almost chillout sounds, more calm and relaxed, almost elegant, offering another great summation of AOL thought, "God created man from dust and man replied with sin and lust, eternal youth on solid ground, beauty makes the world go round". However, the highest peaks of eccentricity are reached with "Heterosexuality", the simulation of intercourse between Jean-Pierre and Michaela on a disorienting electronic base, almost EBM, and the tribal and primeval rhythms of "Sons Of Lucy", a deliberately ungraceful and obsessively repetitive homage to the progenitors of the human race, closing in grand style with "The Day The Gods Help Us All", a visionary orchestral composition imbued with solemnity and melancholy, probably inspired by the choirs of the Red Army, the perfect epilogue for an album that makes emphasis its winning characteristic.

"The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" did not manage to replicate the commercial success of "Massive Luxury Overdose": too eccentric, too niche, outside the box, so much so that with the subsequent "Glory, Glamour And Gold", which would conclude their short and dazzling discographic career, Army Of Lovers would return to a relatively more conventional pop-disco, but the object of this review remains their artistic peak, the deepest imprint left by the passage of AOL. Grandly fun and sarcastic, ingenious in its baroque excess, "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" is something truly alternative and outside the box, an experience to be tried.