I wouldn’ be surprised to find out that John Roger Olssen, the driver behind the wheel of The Grand Opening, is a John McIntyre devotee. Olssen’ penchant for wistful melodies that interweave and dance like heavenly celestial bodies echoes similar sentiments that arise in McIntyre’ outfits The Sea and Cake and Tortoise. Saturnine and melancholic, but never cumbersome, Beyond The Brightness is a controlled and introverted second record by this Swedish outfit whose foundations are built solely of beautiful melody.
The Tortoise influence first appears in “Secrets Revealed’: its jazz-inflected chords, played with pristine, shimmering guitar tones, sounds like it’s been lifted straight out of TNT. But throughout Beyond the Brightness, Olssen rarely musters more than a gritty guitar tone, instead opting for a sound more akin to an act like Explosions in the Sky, and it’s not hard to hear the post rock influence in the work of The Grand Opening. Only “Chainbreak’ sparks to conflagration, a number which simultaneously evokes images of My Morning Jacket, Modest Mouse and Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. It stands out amongst the album’ more serene and reserved tunes, but it’s somehow not incongruous.
In fact, everything about how this album has been constructed defies conventional logic. Beyond the Brightness is so precariously fragile, and moves at such a slow pace, that you’re half-expecting for it at any moment to crack and shatter into infinitesimal pieces. It’s a China doll of music: beautiful, though it could so easily be eviscerated. But Olssen buffers this fragility by offering each instrument its own space. The often intertwining guitars move as one, but you can hear their individual lines. The drums are minimal, as is the occasional piano input. Olssen’s vocals are reverb-effected and multi-tracked as he sings brooding, self-reflective lyrics like “I inherited all the bad things from the people before me / Give me a chance to prove that I’m worth all the time you invest.†Don’ worry John Roger Olssen, you’ve definitely proved it here.
Dom Alessio
