Salli Lunn – Heresy and Rite
Danish four piece Salli Lunn have a sound that is likely to divide both critical opinion and listeners generally. The band blend elements of experimental noise-rock, post-punk and even veer toward post-rock, compositional structures rather than ‘songs’.
All this adds up to a difficult listening experience. Scales go down when you expect up, and vice versa, wrong-footing the listener at every turn. It’s like taking a taxi in a city you vaguely know. The driver takes left when you’re expecting right, right when you’re expecting left. You feel as though you might be getting cheated, taken for a ride, but somehow, remarkably you reach your destination.
Confusion, sleight of hand, twist of fate – Heresy and Rite functions. It is skillful and occasionally excellent but I must add that it is entirely not to my own personal taste. I would guess that many people with a love of pretty effects or a melodic bent might well find Heresy and Rite frustrating. Yet it is imaginative and dare I say distinctive.
Do we really want another clone band of something else we only quite liked in the first place? 30 years ago they would have called this agit pop, not for the lyrical content so much as the angular, mathy structure. Bands like Kim Novak , Silence Is Sexy and iForward Russia! have dabbled in this only to be pulled back towards their more obvious influences. There’s a power here and dynamism to Salli Lunn that you don’t find all that very often, even in post-rock circles. The album is superbly produced by Jonas Munk ( Manual ). Its traumatized subject matter and Lasse Skjold’s bruised vocal delivery are other plus points.
If your appetite is whetted then the single, ‘Parachutes Forever’, is probably the place to dip your toe in. If you find that agreeable doubtless the album is for you.