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Kråkesølv are four guys hailing from the northern town of Bodø. They have been roaming around Norwegian venues and radio playlists for almost a year now, building up the expectations in front of their debut album, Trådnøsting. The teasers they have released have been promising, and they’ve even been described as a crossover between Sonic Youth, Pavement and the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. All high standards to measure your strength against, but my, do they deserve it! Kråkesølv’s rich and clean, dual guitar harmonies are the sounds of four guys having been breastfed Sonic Youth chords as infants. (Don’t get any ideas here; you know what I mean…) Their temperate use of guitar effects however, makes most of their material more similar to the more stripped down parts of the Sonic Youth catalogue, Murray Street as an example. Still, one thing Kråkesølv has not adopted from Sonic Youth is a sober don’t bore us, get to the chorus-approach to their material. Out of the ten songs on the record, only one is more than four minutes. This makes them more similar to bands like the Shins or Norwegian I Was a King, in their search of the short and sweet pop songs.
The arrangements on the album are on the other hand far from stripped down, even though they mostly contain two or three guitars, a single vocal track, a bass guitar and drums. The vivid dynamics and sometimes epic energy of the songs also hints at having heard their share of At The Drive-In and similar American hardcore, in addition to all the windy indie pop references these guys have listed on their MySpace-page.
The liveliness and vigour of the Kråkesølv sound, has much to do with drummer Thomas Litangen’s work. His energetic pounding, together with the bands beautiful rhythmic guitars, fills even the softest ballads on the album with a determined energy, like heard in the song “Vågøyvannet Rundt”. As the yin fills out the yang, the restful vocals still manages to hold the boat in steady waters, even at the band’s energetic peaks – like the opening track “Skredder”.
The most magnificent thing about Trådnøsting is that it’s really hard to point out one really good track from all the others. This is in no way because of mediocre songs, but because this is an album of all killers, no fillers. If you’d put a gun to my head, I would have to say the standouts are the energetic second track “Hell Litervis Med Sand På Timeglasset”, (translated: “Pour Gallons of Sand in the Hour Glass) or the album’s mellow and melancholy finale “Kastes”. But as I said, all killers!
As you may have gathered from the song titles and the band’s name, Kråkesølv performs their poetry in Norwegian. Their lyrics are, as the music, beautiful, energetic, windy and melancholic. And as a Norwegian who’s always been a bit envious at Swedish and Icelandic bands like bob hund, Dungen or Hjaltalìn who have been able to create magnificent pop, singing their own language, it’s a pleasure to hear that three of the best Norwegian albums released this year are preformed in Norwegian. (In addition to Trådnøsting: Lars Vaular’s D’e Glede and John Olav Nilsen og Gjengen’s For sant til å være godt)
Kråkesølv is the Norwegian word for mica, derived from the Latin word micare, meaning “to glitter”. And Kråkesølv, they glitter.
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