Harrys Gym - What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours (Splendour)
3/5
By: Richard Brant
Harrys Gym are Norwegian, they are so Norwegian that they’ve even taken the apostrophe out of Harry’s Gym (named after an abandoned fitness centre in the same building as their rehearsal space) to keep to Norwegian grammatical rules. On this note, their music follows many of their Nordic counterparts in atmospheric, building, encompassing sounds blessed with pure piercing vocals cutting through. Their eponymous debut hit people’s ears to mixed results, but the question is, have they managed to grasp the fleeting glimpses of brilliance in that album and stretch them across the entirety of second offering What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours?
A dreamlike atmosphere is conjured from the synth coated opening of ‘Old Man’. Anne Lise Frøkedal’s voice slides gracefully up and down with spectral quality as synthetic harp plucks dance around lyrics that hold slightly sinister undertones. ‘The Visitor’ is a natural follow on to this, as that lazy style full of key changes tells a story of a lost soul unable to settle and find solace, the marching tribal like drums helping to illustrate this monotony. Maintaining this theme of travel, which crops up a number of times, ‘Mountains’ thumping drums acquire the service of guitars to jangle over the top, as the “mountains ahead” seem to be a daunting prospect for a weary traveller.
A change is a foot though as ‘No Hero’ takes on a darker electro persona yet maintaining a thoroughly pop laden chorus. In correlation to this new electronic direction ‘Extraordinary Girl’ flows on drifting over, as does ‘Toothpaste’ though reforming to a more instrumental guitar led production.
That mean streak seen in ‘No Hero’ is back in ‘The Ring’ as the rhythm guitar plays in time to the steady raised tempo in the drum beats. Frøkedal’s voice eases effortlessly over the top, as it does in the melancholic rock pop of ‘Sailing Home,’ in the same way The Cardigans managed to combine the both.
‘Tell It to My Face’ takes things to simplistic electronics with atmospheric tones and gentle guitar plucks surrounded by Frøkedal’s longing musings. This serves as a calm before the building swirling synth and vocal layers of ‘The Part That Falls’ flows forth to the albums finish. ‘Next Time’ brings What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours to a close and they certainly leave their best to last as the drums and bass lined with cycling harp like plucks creates a chasm of sound for Frøkedal’s to reverb around.
It’s not Björk or Fever Ray, neither is it quite Robyn or when guitar driven anything like the Cardigans or indeed Mew, yet all these artists spring to mind when listening to Harrys Gym. As much as this sounds like it could be a good thing, in that there is no one to pin Harrys Gym to, it’s also a flaw as the sound has no prominence of its own to define them as a band and really say to the world “here we are and this is what we do.” It is a pleasant sound that really flows over you, the structure is grand and the vocals are a big part of this, but there’s just not enough memorable stand out tracks present to really push Harrys Gym further forward.
Harrys Gym- Old Man by Splendour
Artists in this article: Harrys Gym
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