Music Go Music
Expressions

After "Reptilians" by Starfucker, another pop record with a space landscape (or so it would seem) on the cover? Yes, a bizarre and fortuitous coincidence; stylistically, we are on two quite different planets, but "Expressions" by Music Go Music is also an album that demonstrates talent, personality, and remarkable courage. Yes, because the current pop scene, let's not deny it, even among its best representatives, mostly lives on emulation, a modern reinterpretation of old, ever-relevant styles, yet no one has ever truly tried to retrace the path laid out by ABBA. To "imitate" what the legendary Swedish quartet did, you need style, class, and above all, nerves of steel: the risk of falling into kitsch is high, and in such a case, you need the charisma of the old Army Of Lovers or you risk making a fool of yourself, but that's not the case here: Music Go Music carries on the ABBA discourse starting from the end, from the best of the best, that is, trying to provide a sequel to "The Visitors," one of the greatest albums in pop history, and most importantly, they have managed to achieve this not-so-easy goal.

 Another bizarre coincidence, Music Go Music is a side-project (unfortunately temporary and limited only to this superb album) of David and Meredith Metcalf, who, by coincidence, are husband and wife as well as members of the recently founded rock band Bodies Of Water: two professionals, then, skilled musicians and not amateurs driven by the spirit of emulating their idols, and in "Expressions" this makes all the difference. The starting point is indeed "The Visitors," and for those (hopefully very few) who have no idea what this fundamental assumption implies, here's a brief summary: pop with simple and perfectly structured melodies and super-catchy choruses, in pure ABBA style, but also new-wave influences, a refined, eclectic and articulated sound, enveloping and sometimes vaguely unsettling atmospheres, varied and rich arrangements but never even remotely touching excessive baroque pomp, with a slight visionary touch even on a lyrical level. In 1981, with the same assumptions, ABBA had created something immense, in 2009 the Metcalfs manage to honor such a heavy legacy. More often than not, this record matches those peaks of absolute melodic perfection that our Great Inspirers accustomed us to: just think of potential chart-busting singles like "I Walk Alone", a compelling dancefloor bomb, the Latin-tinged "Thousand Crazy Nights", which with its swaggering and sensual stride is hotter than all of Madonna's and J.Lo's singles combined and the martial and driving new-wave of a formidable "Love, Violent Love". Meredith's vocal versatility, which manages to combine Frida's sensual tone with Agnetha's vivacity, is a great added value, as demonstrated by the masterful revival of the playful and carefree sounds of albums like "Arrival" that occurs with "Light Of Love", or the veiled melancholy not entirely hidden by lively synths emerging in "Explorers Of The Heart", the pop rock with electronic nuances, bombastic just enough of "Just Me" and the simple and immediate emotionality of a perfect closing like "Goodbye, Everybody", a delightful and intense orchestral ballad.

As if all this bacchanal of perfect melodies and sounds wasn't enough, David and Meredith also set themselves even more ambitious goals, going beyond the boundaries of pop song with "Warm In The Shadows", a new wave mantra grafted onto an electronic base of bass and sound effects with an atmosphere vaguely in Soft Cell style, sparse and minimalistic for the standards of the album but able to captivate the listener for all its scant ten-minute duration with an ineffable hypnotic alchemy and the elegant aggressiveness of "Reach Out", which manages to combine almost doomy guitar tastes with a gothic touch (which retraces the melodic line of a breathtaking masterpiece like "Sanctum Sanctorum" by Damned) that speeds up assuming almost futuristic atmospheres in the compelling chorus, a masterpiece of manifold ingenuity that we could define as progressive-pop, an additional touch of class that completes the luxuriant stylistic kaleidoscope of this ephemeral side-project. One album, one winning shot; but is it really worth invoking the Pentateuch for such an album? Perhaps not, but it is a record so successful and perfect, an Oscar-winning performance rather than a simple imitation; listening to it at times makes you think: "these don't sound like ABBA, they are ABBA," and if there had been a post "The Visitors" it would probably have been more or less like this, perhaps it's not worth five stars but as I already said this is not even a simple tribute, but there are also other components, there is the will to imagine an evolution, immense class and there's Pop as it should be, and so let it be Pentateuch, and in my heart, I hope that David and Meredith can propose another album like this in the future, perhaps "honoring" some other great from the past. It is an operation that probably can work only once but they have shown they are so good that they might give it an encore.