Album Reviews

Album Review: Frida Hyvonen – Silence Is Wild

By | Published on Monday 2 February 2009

Frida Hyvonen

It’s a good time to be a Swedish chanteuse. The girls have exited through the fjords to share a smorgasbord of their aural delights with the wider world. Like Frida and Agnetha before them, the Scandinavian ladies have long proved how capable they are as part of an ensemble. Marie Fredriksson has been ripping it up with Roxette since the eighties and Jenny Berrgren is taking to the road again this year with her siblings, aka nineties pop sensations Ace Of Base. Nina Perssons performs front-person duties for A Camp while The Cardigans take a breather and Karin Dreijer Andersson’s Nordic vocal squall humanises The Knife’s brand of synth-laden electroclash. The Swedes can do it on their own in the global market too with the success of solo artists like Stina Nordstam, Robyn and, recently, Lykke Li. Similarly, Frida Hyvönen has left behind the comforts of her native land to wantonly tinkle a great many ivories throughout Europe, the US and China since 2004, in the company of Jose Gonzales and Jens Lekman. Hyvönen’s second long player doesn’t exactly take up from where her debut, ‘Until Death Comes’, left off. It’s a different beast entirely, having fleshed out her usually somewhat sparse arrangements with strings, choirs and synths, resulting in a much meatier, substantial sound. This suits Hyvönen’s direct style of personal retrospection, a theme that remains a constant in her lyrics. Her vocal style is wonderful. The soft but firm whirl of her voice hints at a rich wisdom, akin to that of Marianne Faithful or Martha Wainwright, but at times, she is not averse to the percussive staccato like that of Regina Spektor. She is a contemporary Swede who deserves international appreciation. MB

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