MAGNET'S Even Johansen has already warmed our hearts and chilled our very souls with his two recent splendid EPS, "Where Happiness Lives" and "Chasing Dreams," so the immediate good news bulletin is that "The Day We Left Town" is his third four-track artistic success.
That said, while those EPS proferred a dreamily atmospheric sound that suited Magnet's fragmented ballads to a T, "The Day We Left Town" pushes closer to the heart of darkness that Even previously only hinted at, with these four songs all walking a very unsteady wire between ecstacy and the howling black chasm of emotional turbulence below.
The EP kicks off with the stunning title track. It opens with a squiffy loop from what sounds like an old musical, before slowing to embrace a harp-rippling musical landscape and Even apparently singing of re-awakening. It's only when he reaches the line about "dousing the walls with kerosene" that the horrible truth dawns as Even and (I hope) his partner drive away from the engulfing flames. Literally incendiary stuff.
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The intensity refuses to let up thereafter. "Clean Slate" is an expansive, descriptive ballad - more reminiscent of "Chasing Dreams" with Even's yearning vocals and the rolling, heartbeat drums to the fore. "Dead Happy" and "The Big Black Moon", however, are both exceptionally creepy. The former is glacially still and vaguely reminiscent of Radiohead with the lonely tambourine hopelessly failing to instil a pop atmosphere. Compared to "The Big Black Moon",though, it's a Pinky and Perky fun fest, as "TBBM" is voyeuristically pretty, with Even's whispered vocals and the quivering electronica coming across liek a keyboard-oriented Red House Painters.
Even Johansen is unquestionably an excellent artist and "The Day We Left Town" is his third superb EP, albeit one with an air of almost unbearable, numbed-out introspection.
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