Amilost – I suppose that’s Am I lost? Or is that too obvious? I love their Introduction on Facebook – “A Norwegian and a Scotsman walk into a bar. There’s no punch line but there is music”.
If they were working in industry or commerce they’d have to pay a lot of money to an agency for something like that.
The trouble is, when you know you’re dealing with smart folk like they evidently are, sometimes the real business, the songwriting, can be a letdown.
Not here my friends.
‘Tiny War’ was written by the Norwegian, female, and vocalist in what is a duo (although I’ve also seen them referred to as a duo), Sigrid (Zeiner-Gundersen) on the very day a romantic relationship ended. It is a return to their “signature Scandi-pop sound” and isn’t the first time they’ve tackled relationships and their termination.
The song concerns the attempts made by only one of the party to save an affair that has been failing affair bit by bit over time resulting in the admission “I don’t know how to love you any more”.
Reading that you might conclude it’s going to be a standard break up song worthy of a single spin and then move on but you’d be wrong.
Firstly there’s the sparse but tasty lyricism, right from the off:
“We wore each other paper thin/ Sanded down the grains so we could stay together”
(Like making a dovetail joint in the school carpentry shop I suppose, hoping it will fit in place). Then,
“I don’t know how to love you anymore/I don’t know how to come back from another tiny war”.
There isn’t much more to it but there doesn’t have to be. Less can be more.
Secondly, the musicianship. In the nicest way it’s all over the place. It gets underway as a tender ballad and it could be Sigrid’s compatriot Aurora singing it. Then it goes all ethereal by way of a multi-tracked vocal/synthesiser section which ends with what sounds like the siren of an ambulance speeding to pick up the pieces of this moribund relationship.
Back to the ballad again. The voice is more plaintive now; think Ingrid Håvik of Highasakite. And then just when you think they’ll play out with a similar outro verse it explodes for the final minute to something that isn’t far off symphonic metal.
By now I had to check out their back story and it didn’t surprise me to discover that it embraces pop, classical music, hard rock and metal. No surprises there.
It’s a bold statement to make but I’ll do it anyway. ‘Tiny War’ says as much in a little over three minutes as some achieve on an entire album.
They might be lost but they’ll be found soon enough.
‘Tiny War’ was released via Icons Creating Evil Art.
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