It seems harsh to criticise this album for its lack of substance, especially because making it sound so sparse and thrifty was clearly a deliberate ploy. But Frida Hyvonen is part of a mushrooming new generation of confessional singer-songwriters – many of them fellow-Scandinavians like her Swedish self – and while her debut is pleasant enough it hardly suggests she’s the pick of the crop. Many tracks are pretty but pointless pencil-sketches in which her deadpan vocal delivery and inert piano chords quickly fade into unforgettability. The romantic, retro glow of ‘Come Another Night’ and the hateful grubbiness of ‘Once I Was A Serene Teenaged Child’, with its nasty back-story of childhood defilement, both offer a welcome release from the linear normality that prevails elsewhere. Other songs have their moments, but too much echoes emptily and leaves you yearning for the more engaging emotionalism of Jose Gonzalez (with whom Hyvonen has toured), the free-form quirkiness of Hanne Hukkelberg, or, better still, anything by Emiliana Torrini.
