Albums

Jeniferever - Spring Tides

Craig Broad 31/05/2009

Rating: 5/5

Jeniferever, a four piece from Uppsala, Sweden formed in 1996. After a long wait and several EP releases, 2006 saw the release of their debut album, 'Choose a Bright Morning' on Drowned In Sound recordings which garnered them great reviews and won over a cult underground following, begging for the band to become bigger than they probably would have ever imagined. Several near sold out tours around Europe ensued but the big break that was expected never came and eventually the hype behind Jeniferever slowed down due to a lack of new material being released. 2008, however, saw the release of 'Nangijala', a three track EP on NAIM and while it showed a different sense of adventure throughout its packaging, this reviewer at least was disappointed with the result of the music showcased,: an alarming lack of evolution from the now two years previous 'Choose a Bright Morning'.

With 2009's release of Jeniferever's follow up album 'Spring Tides', there is, for me, a rather large sense of hesitance. Is this album going to be much the same as we've all now come to expect from Jeniferever, slow building, shoe gaze ambience or will 'Spring Tides' go where 'Nangijala' didn't dare to, into the realms of something new?

Luckily, all notions of negativity are dispelled within the first track 'Green Meadow Island', which carries a sense of urgency that many Jeniferever fans won't have heard before, a more drum-driven sound covered with rockier distorted walls of sound and as always, the emotionally charged vocals of Kristofer Jönson, for once not hesitantly whispered. The tempo and attitude remains much the same until 'Nangijala', the title track from the previous EP release which sadly, lowers the tone back into Jeniferever of old and really shouldn't have been seen fit to share the limelight on this release. Thankfully the rest of 'Spring Tides' fits right back into place, ambient and shoegazey but refreshingly so in its approach, making way for its more calmer moments within the middle point of the album to really show off the band's knack for writing both slow and fast paced emotional melodies that hold the ability to warm your heart like very few bands seem to achieve in modern music.

'Spring Tides' is the release that Jeniferever had to make, still sticking to their guns but penning songs that should pull them from underground cult status to the dizzying heights that their counterparts, bands like Sigur Ros, have achieved. If 'Spring Tides' isn't in the majority of reviewer's top ten albums for 2009, alongside great commercial success, then the world really is a cruel place.

http://www.myspace.com/jeniferever