Untill recently I associated the combination Sweden and music either with bubblegum pop, nasty noise or darkest ambient. The members of Amandine though seem to have lived in southern parts of the USA in their former lives. Their music, though also inspired by indie pop, comes probably close to Americana or ‘alt country’, genre labels which I’m not very familiar with. In general you can say that Amadine makes melancholic acoustic pop, and they’re quite good at it.
The album contains rather tranquil, laid-back songs, with clear melodies and harmonic male vocals. I really like the prominent role for the piano on various songs, and the atmospheric colouring by the accordion, violin and banjo. The music on “This is where our hearts collide” is both emotional and relaxing. My favourite songs is the first one, ‘For all the marbles’, with nice female backing vocals in the moving refrain. At times the music on this album comes closes to being too sweet and smooth, but Amandine stays just on the good side on the border. Nothing revolutionary here, but an honest piece of work with well-crafted songs.
The album is due out on the 14th of November, and is preceded by the 7″ single “Halo”, one of the most atmospheric songs of the album.
