ABBA are back with their first album in 40 years, but what’s the verdict?

news7g11/05/2021

3 2 minutes read

ABBA are back with their first album in 40 years, but what's the verdict?

Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog reunited this year after going their separate methods in 1982. “ABBA: Voyage,” their new album launched Friday, options 10 tracks and is their first since “The Guests” in 1981.

For a lot of followers, it is protected to say absence does makes the center develop fonder.

“It is ARRIVED with solely 40 years delayed,” one fan tweeted, whereas one other mentioned: “HAPPY VOYAGE DAY!!!”

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One other commentator wrote: “It is no pop basic, nevertheless it has some stunning ABBA thrives. The voices are simply stunning – Benny & Björn have intentionally prevented utilizing fashionable overly produced vocals, however a number of the lyrics are twee. Nevertheless, it is polished, inoffensive and a grower. A becoming closing farewell.”

One other fan added on Twitter: “Probably the most exceptional factor about Voyage is that it is new ABBA that is nonetheless completely ABBA in any case these years, however you have not heard it a thousand instances but.”

Amongst music critics, nevertheless, opinion was extra divided.

Awarding the document 5 stars, the UK’s The Independent described the undertaking as “a triumphant album awash with ABBA’s gung-ho uncoolness” that “delivers all of the basic ABBA flavours.”

In accordance with Pitchfork’s Ben Cardew, the album falls “between the lure of nostalgia and the pull of the current day.”

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He wrote: “Voyage is the uncommon post-reformation album to construct upon the band’s legacy with out abandoning what we liked about their basic data within the first place. That makes Voyage a surprisingly mandatory journey into the current from a band who might have coasted on the nice and cozy fumes of adulation advert infinitum.”

Writing for the UK’s Telegraph, Neil McCormick mentioned “ABBA: Voyage” was a “light OAP cruise across the backwaters of ABBA’s fame.”

He added that whereas Fältskog and Lyngstad “can nonetheless maintain a tune,” Andersson and Ulvaeus “haven’t misplaced their capacity to craft a flowing melody adorned with glittering hooks.”

However in a two-star evaluate headlined “No thanks for the music,” the Guardian’s Jude Rogers described ABBA’s ninth album as a “disappointment” that “prefers to languish in typically bafflingly retrograde settings.”

“Slightly than reflecting poignantly on the previous, a lot of the remainder of Voyage feels terminally caught there,” she wrote, earlier than branding “Little Issues”, a Christmas tune, a “large crime towards sense, sentimentality and sequencing.”

The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Barry Divola was equally brutal in his evaluation, writing: “The dangerous information is that there is a bunch of utter schlock right here,” and giving the album 2.5 stars.

Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield, on the other hand, declared: “This album can be a one-of-a-kind historic occasion even when the songs blew — nevertheless it’s classic ABBA, on par with their basic Seventies run. It evokes the times when the Norse gods dominated the radio, combining two of the Seventies’ hottest traits: heartbreak and sequin-studded pantsuits.”

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