Toiling on their sound for the last thirteen years, the Swedish dream-pop quartet The Mary Onettes have perfected the art of eighties nostalgia with their latest album Hit the Waves. Its near-forty minutes of glittery melodic riffs, African percussive rhythms, confectionary ambiances and resplendent angst never misses that trademark eighties gleam, not even for a second. It’s infectious and impressive, but of course one has to wonder if eighties-revival, as overdone and unsuccessful as it typically seems to be, is really the most relevant direction for such a talented band. I can’t say for sure, but what I do know is that I can’t help loving this music.
Spacey synths and subdued ambiances guide us into the album intro, which features floating voices, half-whispers and gentle piano progressions. Borne to life from out of this pervasive ethereality is “Evil Coast,” a five-and-a-half minute dive into slickly-produced musical radiance, where shock synths, sliding fx effects, and a tremulous, glistening male voice collude from somewhere beyond a dream-ambiance.
Proceeding tracks are swathed in a similar haze of bright sound, but despite this lyrics are dark and seem consistently concerned with the pernicious intrusion of some malady on all matters of existence. “We’re gonna let it grow cold” is a line sung in the radio-friendly “Hit the Waves,” while “years can never tell” is the motto of disillusionment for the track “Years.” Then there’s the facetious title of “Don’t Forget (to Forget about Me)” and the happily-sung “let’s bury our sins together/forever” that appears in “Black Sunset.” A cynicism underscores the dream-organs and funk grooves of “Blues,” while throughout the contrapuntal shimmers and beautiful guitar of “Unblessed” we are told that this is “more than just a bad dream.” The juxtaposition of form and material provides a certain significance to the album, a shade of haunted tragedy that elevates the sound to a more heightened context.
Finally there’s the fatalism of “How it all Ends,” as a brusque bass and resigned vocals are steadily drawn into a hazy envelopment of harmonious vocal cries and mood-piercing guitar strums. I was waiting for something grander here, a climax to pull together the motifs of angst built through the previous tracks, but perhaps a melodic capitulation was a better route to go. With its ears in the past, its thoughts in the dark, and its dreams in the muted distance, this album is a moving reflection of something yearning yet wholly satisfying.
