The Dipsomaniacs - Praying Winter
(Camera Obscura)
If you can get past the annoying click track that sounds like the CD is skipping, "Dear Mrs. Widdercombe" is a pleasant folk rocker that opens the "Norwegian Pajamas" fifth album, an incredible collection of folk rock, power pop, and acoustic psych that eschews the lengthy psychedelic jams of their previous effort, Tremolo of Her Mind in favor of the more song-oriented nature of their previous Camera Obscura gem, Stethoscopic Notion, which happened to be the best album of 2001. "How To Fall" suggests head 'maniac Øyvind Holm has been spending a lot of time with the young Dylan's back catalogue. The hard-driving "Feel the Travel" reflects a harder rocking effort this time out, and features backwards guitars and a biting bluesy solo from Holm.
At times, Holm's nasally voice stills sounds very much like Lennon on helium (as on the gentle ballad, "Don't Think You're Safe"), at other times he emits the delicate roughness of honeyed sandpaper. Thomas Henriksen's piano opening on "No. 2 Ventricle Road" sounds like the transitional segment of "Day In The Life," until Håkon Gebhardt's banjo picks up the melody out of left field. By the time the multi-tracked Queen-ish vocals wrestle the song out of its awkward opening, we are in the midst of one of those avant-prog suites the Lucky Bishops have mastered of late.
The twangy waltz of the title track, complete with countrified yodeling makes me long to hear the band take a crack at Mike Nesmith's old chestnut, "Joanne," but the forlorn piano base and dirgy electronics here will do fine in the interim. And if you think that was country rock, it was only laying the groundwork for the opening to "Beyond Repair," itself a teaser for the swirling dip into the Revolver gene pool, and which could easily have been subtitled "She Said Tomorrow Never Knows." I also enjoyed the R.E.M.-ish vibe of "Read My Mind (And Tell Me)," the gentle guitar weeping of "Someday Soon" (not, I should add, the old Ian Tyson-penned Judy Collins hit), the chamber pop of the album's most intricate track, "She Weighs Her Time" (featuring a wonderful marriage of piano and strings, courtesy Arve Henriksen, Elisabeth Rolvsjold Uddu, Ragnhild Torp and Tonje Bekken—Elvis Costello: phone Norway and get these folks' numbers immediately). Finally, the offbeat, genre-crossing, jazzy "Dead Men Free," offers a pleasant diversion, which leads to Gøran Olsen's trombone-led swaying melody of the closing track, "Songbird (Without You Knowing)." It reminds me of the majestic Mojave 3, always a very good thing!
With the media mistakenly leading the public into the belief that the current Norwegian scene is centered around the fey, wimpy, electronic disco scene in Bergen (Sondre Lerche, Erland Øye, Kings of Convenience, Röyksopp), it's a shame the true superstars of the Norwegian pop scene are being criminally overlooked. Don't let their lack of notoriety turn you off—this is the true sound of Scandinavian pop at its best. Now all we have to do is close the 8,000 mile gap between them and get the Green Pajamas and Dipsomaniacs on the same stage—a dream lineup to kickstart the next Terrastock festival.
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