Salli Lunn - Heresy and Rite (Album)

I’ve often wondered what compels a band for whom English isn’t their mother tongue to sing in English. Clearly it is an artistic decision which is entirely theirs to make, and there are certainly a host of wonderful bands, including Phoenix, Mew and M83 to name a mere few, who choose to do it, but the motive behind it has never been entirely clear to me. Is it for commercial appeal? Is English particularly easier on the ear than other languages? Do foreign musicians just like to show off how expert their English is? Answers on a postcard (or that little comments box at the bottom) please.

Danes Salli Lunn are another example of a band recording in English as opposed to their native language. Now, short of hearing a recording of Heresy and Rite in Danish for comparison purposes, we are limited in our ability to assess the relevance of their linguistic choices, but what is all too apparent is that there are times when some frankly atrocious lyrics take the shine off what could have been one of this year’s most shining examples of noise-drenched indie. The most obvious and most squirm-inducing example of this can be found on Mirror Girl. You could take your pick from the song’s whole lyric-sheet, but the line which makes me recoil most is probably ‘She can not be a single girl with those pretty cheekbones’. One aberration of a song does not entirely ruin a record, but the unfortunate effect it has is to make it difficult to totally lose yourself the first half of the album because you know this is lurking portentously round the corner.

This is a real shame too, because at its best Heresy and Rite is a record which, either intentionally or otherwise, takes a number of reference points (I spotted, among others, very early Sonic Youth, Interpol, and Engineers) and blends them into a fairly agreeable melange. What Salli Lunn do really well (and it’s tragic the album doesn’t explore it more) are the huge assaults of squealing, crashing noise which punctuate the album, never more so than about five and a half minutes into Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, or the latter stages of Frame of Reference. When they pull this off, they are visceral, vital and exhilarating, and it’s a pleasure to slip the headphones on, turn the volume up, and immerse yourself in the shower of noise. Although the album’s more tumultuous sections represent its greatest successes, they are backed up by one or two strong lower key moments too. Parachutes Forever, for instance, shares a similar wide-eyed innocence to Jeniferever’s best work, while Belongings is a skilfully delivered slice of paranoid brooding.

On the whole, then, Heresy and Rite is an album which produces hugely inconsistent results. To call it a mixed bag would be the most enormous of understatements. It undoubtedly contains a lot of the right ingredients for Salli Lunn to be major noise-rock players, and the more experimental elements of the album are beautifully-realised, but what will ultimately stay with you after listening to Heresy and Rite are its slips into formulaic territory, as well as the horror of Mirror Girl.