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Feb 4 2009, Postrockcommunity review

The growth as human beings
Of the blooming sophomore album.

After The Funeral Album, released in 2007, Sweden's A Journey Down the Well present their new album titled Sorry Monsters, I have to grow. While it may be a bit less pessimistic and depressingly sounding, their sophomore album is still unsuitable for cowards, suicidal juveniles and their puzzled mothers or the lone night-time walk through the woods.

Sugarman starts with vocals, that could have been taken directly from an old horrorflick. Then the cello interferes, everything builds up to the climax, until - typically for the band - lonely voices, which remind more of pleading than actual singing, resound. Also the title track begins similarly. When the ghastly choirs become silent though, tones from a piano reach the ears, the chords sound more threatening gradually, letting the choir finally come back to life. It is then transformed to a moving duet in the third song, accompanied by the stoic calm of the cello. It seems that A Journey Down the Well feel the most comfortable in moments like these, demonstrating impressively how a band can generate extremely burdensome atmosphere with relatively simple means. As sentimental as this atmosphere has been built, the subsequent interlude, moderated by a war correspondent strives to hold the tension.

The next two songs of the album, which - according to the band - is about brutal wars, oppression of personality and trying to grow as a human being while leaving all the unnecessary fears behind, hold the same direction. Classical instruments fancy with the post rock or experimental genre, while the vocals sprout moanfully and dolorously again. The last, a good ten and a half minutes long song however, seems particularly mentionable. Anna Erneman , Martin Bjelfvenstam und Taner Torun experiment with ambient sounds and LoFi-drums while the string bowed instruments, in their frightening style, lay ontop. The perfect way to end a sophomore album, that positively screams: Sorry Monsters, we HAVE grown.

Genre: Post Rock / Exerimental / Neo-Classical
(43:03)

Tracklist:
1. Sugarman
2. Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow
3. I Will Never Become, What I’m Afraid Of
4. Bush Horror Movie Soundtrack (Some People Will Never Listen To Music Again)
5. Two Beautiful Swans In A Dirty Lake
6. Happy Bird Day
7. New Abandoned Places On Earth

Debut album: The Funeral Album can be downloaded for free at lastfm.

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Jan 28 2009, A Silent Room

Cuando lees Suecia, dices "Esto será...genial" Pero ojo, hay diferentes estilos, y este es un álbum diferente y único, de primeras no es fácil de escuchar.

Jan 6 2009, Sic Magazin Review

Fluttery Records
Reviewed by Dez Innocent
8/10

The general tone and mood of a year can often be reflected in its music. If the first new record I’ve heard in 2009 is the soundtrack to the coming months, then I think I’ll just hide under my duvet until 2010 rolls along.

A Journey Down the Well are a trio of two Swedes and a Turk (Martin Bjelfvenstam, Anna Erneman and Taner Torun) who make music that fits the bag marked post-rock / neo-classical crossover, but who sound very little like most of the acts who share that increasingly overfull niche. There are no grandstanding displays of virtuosity, and no warm, lush and comforting pieces. This is music that is fairly sparse, and exceedingly bleak.

“Sorry Monsters, I Have to Grow” is an explicitly political album. As is often the case when writers use a language that is not their first, the lyrics often have a strange turn of phrase and an unintentional ambiguity that somehow works. The words on “Happy Bird Day”, for example, don’t read well, but fit the music. It’s a plea against intolerance and bigotry that is coupled with a desolate backing that seems to be resigned to that plea falling on deaf ears.

On the first two tracks, the trio are aided by the Strandvägen Choir whose mournful, phonetic phrasings make them sound more like a ragged band of refugees than a classical chorus. “Sugarman” is a jarring track. Its eerie cello figure and voice sound like the embodiment of human suffering. “They create a history out of lies and they call it future” is the age old, but still depressingly true, complaint that history is written by the winners and the powerful.

There are moments when the generally oppressive atmosphere is lifted. “I Will Never Become What I’m Afraid Of” is a charmingly ragged ballad, and “Two Beautiful Swans in a Dirty Lake” is a richly beautiful violin / cello duet. It opens with a robotic evangelist (is there any other kind?) seeing Heaven in a vision of two swans on a dirty lake. Christians do have that cheesy tendency to proclaim as miracles anything that is out of the ordinary or unexpected, but the juxtaposition of beauty amongst filth is more a general metaphor of hope amongst despair.

The moments of hope, though, are fleeting. “New Abandoned Places on Earth” is a percussion-heavy epic instrumental that has echoes of post-punk acts like 23 Skidoo and Savage Republic. As the US-backed Israeli forces wreak havoc and death upon the civilians of Gaza, it’s a chillingly apt and timely piece of music.

Sorry Monsters, I Have to Grow has some parallels with recent albums by A Silver Mt Zion. But where the Canadians never let go of the hope for a better world, A Journey Down the Well seem to despair that nothing can change, and that the weak and defenceless will always be the victims of the powerful. Like Towering Inferno’s Kaddish, it’s not always an easy album to listen to, but nevertheless a brave and ambitious work that deserves to be heard. (Also this review appears on Music Musings and Miscellany)

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