February 5, 2007

Entakt - Træerne Vokser Ind I Himlen - Thoughts

Why is it that every time I find an album to be really great, I find it equally difficult to write a post about it? I’ve often wondered if it is because I want my post to be good enough, to serve it justice? Or is it because my post suddenly starts resembling a review, which is the last thing I want it to? Maybe it’s because a post with no other content than; “this is a damn great album – go buy it”; is rather pointless? I honestly don’t know why I experience this kind of “writer’s block”, so I believe your guess will be as good as mine.
The most recent example of this stalemate has occurred whenever I’ve wanted to write a post on the debut album by Danish 5-piece Entakt called Træerne Vokser Ind I Himlen. I’ve probably started writing the post 10 times and deleted it all again the same number of times.
So I’ve been getting more or less nowhere on this project ever since the album was released (January 6), which has been a quite annoying experience. Primarily because this is indeed a fine and rather remarkable album deserving to be mentioned and recommended.
Needless to say I’m not even remotely close to being familiar with everything released in Denmark, but I have difficulties remembering a debuting band in recent years, with more confidence and a higher level of ambition than Entakt. And probably no debut has been more anticipated in Denmark the past 5 years than this one (the most recent one I can think of is the Saybia debut). This especially because the band, thanks to Myspace and Mymusic.dk, has spent the past few years building a rather huge fan base on the web (myself included). So I guess one can say that the self-belief (and expectations) didn’t exactly emerge out of the blue.
With all this in mind, it was with some interest and anxiousness that I listened to the album for the first time, but it didn’t take long for it to convince me of its (many) qualities, which was quite a relief (don't we all hate being disappointed?). Træerne vokser….is packed with intelligent/relevant lyrics and contains a string of very nice melodies, which more than once made me (and still makes me) think of my Swedish favorites, Kent. Of course there are a few week moments on the album, and some songs take longer getting into than other, but overall this is a prosperous debut, which makes me believe that 3-4 albums from now these guys will be among the best this country (or perhaps even the world) has to offer.
I’ve tried to get permission to post a track from the album, but that quikly turned out to be an uphill climb. Instead I’ve posted three older tracks, from the EP Ventilen. Despite being 3-4 years old, the songs still give a pretty fair introduction to the musical universe of Entakt.
+ Ventilen
+ Side 2
+ [Vinterbrud]

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