MAGNE FURUHOLMEN
WHITE XMAS LIES
DRABANT MUSIC / MEMBRAN★★★★
HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS? NOT IF THE
A-HA KEYBOARDIST’S WELCOME ANTIDOTE TO FALSE
FESTIVE CHEER HAS GOT ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT...
appealingly like Roger Waters’.
That’s especially true on Caprice
Des Dieux, an acoustic track
highlighting a faltering voice
that’s nonetheless effectively
vulnerable while attempting to
“guide a human heart through
these trying times”. It’s also
evident in the title track’s
weightier arrangements –
though there he makes room
for sleigh bells – and on The
Light We Lost, whose stately
atmosphere preaches
acceptance of failed friendships.
At least there’s hearty laughter
after the concluding, unsettling
Jingle Bells riff.
Elsewhere, there’s admirable,
classy songwriting – Tom
Waits-style piano ballad So
Cold It’s Hard To Think, the
lethargic Snow Is Falling, the
closing, reconciliatory Come
Back Home – which remind us
that A-ha are far more than a
pretty face. There’s even an
extraordinarily raw, sparse
cover of AC/DC’s Hells Bells.
Ultimately, White Xmas Lies
provides an unexpected but
overdue rejoinder to the
season’s forced good humour,
a refreshing shot of realism
designed to address Yuletide’s
normally disregarded dark side.
Happy Christmas!
Wyndham WallaceG
iven he’s helped
write some of the
biggest songs by
Norway’s biggest
band, you’d think A-ha’s Magne
Furuholmen would be happy.
That his third solo album is a
Christmas collection would
appear to underline that belief.
But White Xmas Lies is anything
but cheerful.
Before his opening song,
the world-weary There Goes
Another Year, has finished, he’s
acknowledging “what we say
but do not mean/ Every word
and in-between”, before winding
up “in the darkness of
December/ As our letters come
returned to sender.” Don’t expect
a card this winter.
It’s a mood he maintains
almost unceasingly, thoughAmerica – whose title and
structure pun on David Bowie
and Pat Metheny’s 1984
collaboration – and The Season
To Be Melancholy, a shuffling
tune with cooing backing
vocals and acoustic guitars,
recall the masterful In Rainbows.
That said, the former laments
America’s broken dreams, with
its “shooting sprees in her
school-yard/ Border walls and
prison guards” and the nation
notably steered by “a monkey at
the wheel”. The latter’s title,
meanwhile, is self-explanatory,
though lines like, “Out comes the
Christmas punch/ But you just
take it on the chin” drive the
point home.
There are, however, also
echoes of Pink Floyd in
Furuholmen’s vocals, which creakWhite Xmas Lies nevertheless
offers glimpses of fairy lights,
albeit disguised by a comforting
bittersweet melancholy, the kind
Radiohead sometimes achieve.
Admittedly, A Punch-Up On
Boxing Day’s chiming pianos
and mournful melody are more
like Coldplay after a rough
divorce, but both This Is Now© Nina Djærff