Kings Of Convenience
Quiet Is The New Loud

THE REVIEW

Bergen, Norway. Two boys. The white-painted wooden house of Erlend's parents. A large window overlooking the incredibly still water of the fjord. If it's sunny, the water is blue; if it's cloudy, which is much more likely, it's black, beautiful. The two sit at the window, sip tea, play guitars (steel strings for Erlend, nylon for Eirik), sing about difficult loves and existence.

The "New Acoustic," just to use the label from the NME, here it is. "Quiet Is The New Loud" is a very beautiful album, very "quiet," very inspired, too.
Guitar and voice. Rare appearances of cello, trumpet, percussion, and piano, here and there. Searching for their historical references is all too easy, also because they certainly don't do anything new, nor do they try: Simon & Garfunkel and Nick Drake, everyone writes it, and it's absolutely obvious.
Thirty years later, their sound is cleaner, their lyrics – beautiful – are a little less desperate, their fans no longer need to run away from home to see them live (and certainly won't pull in 500,000 at Central Park).

"Things seem so much better when / they're not a part of your close surroundings. / Like words in a letter sent, / amplified by the distance."

[Ed. note: Erlend Øye released "Unrest"]