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Frida Hyvönen
Silence is Wild
Review By Chris Drabick
You could make a lot of incorrect assumptions about Frida Hyvönen if you don’t pay close attention. She’s a woman who plays piano, so she must sound like Tori Amos, right? Umm, no, not exactly. She’s from Sweden, so her approach resembles the hushed tones of fellow Swede Jose Gonzalez, or the catchy pop of Stockholm’s Peter Bjorn and John? Again, not so much. Frida is on her own trip, combining an intense and at times unsettlingly direct first-person narrative lyrical style, while musically veering from Laura Nyro-style moments to a more classically-styled pop sense.
The record opens with the most pristine example of Hyvönen’s approach, as “Dirty Dancing” is a pretty sparse number with an unadorned melody and a beguiling story to its (non-rhyming) lyrics. It’s also easily one of the year’s best songs, marrying a confessional style to an unexpected girl group feel, resulting in a catchy and surprisingly moving track. The rest of the record may not live up to that opening (little shame in that), but it does have lots of highlights. The record is a bit grander than her debut, the sparse Until Death Comes, with standouts like “Enemy Within” and “Birds” being far more fleshed-out than Death’s songs. Hyvönen is also unafraid to tackle sensitive subject matter, as “December” is a startlingly frank and detached number about abortion. It’s a typically brave moment for this brave songwriter, although her audacity is easily matched by her melodic sense. All of this adds up to Silence is Wild’s place as a major step forward for Hyvönen.
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