DIM GRAY: Flown (ATMOSPHERIC ROCK,Alternative Rock): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

A Norwegian trio from Oslo with a singer with a pure and melancholic voice, does that sound familiar? Would it be A-ha ? No, the correct answer was Dim Gray. If the three members of the band were not born in the Norwegian capital, it is there that Oskar Holldorff (vocals, keyboards), Håkon Høiberg (vocals, guitar) and Tom Ian R. Klungland (drums) met and decided to form a band in 2012. It took eight years of gestation to release their first album, "Flown". A duration effectively put to good use.

For "Flown" is a little nugget of rock art with its chiselled melodies, diversity and inventiveness. Bathed in a seductive melancholy distilled by the double effect of Oskar Holldorff's naturally moving timbre and bittersweet compositions, the album does not sink into apathy, however, knowing how to maintain interest by constant evolution and zebra its intimate atmosphere of guitar flashes and drum roars. The quiet moments are regularly electrified by sudden bursts of fury, like a Pain of Salvation, all proportions kept, "Flown" having nothing metal about it.

The album is often tinged with an intimate, even minimalist character, especially on its central section (from 'Wandering' to 'Song for E.') where piano/voice, acoustic guitar/voice and evanescent instrumentals (solo guitar for 'Flown' and 'Yore', as experimental as ghostly) follow one another. But Dim Gray has the intelligence not to lock himself in a too reductive style and varies the atmospheres, going from a pop worked A-ha way (we're coming back to that!) on 'The Wave We Thought We'd Ride Forever' to a country/post rock fusion ('Closer') or mixing twilight western, noisy passage and folk jig('Dreamer's Disease') for a result as original as convincing.

"Flown" proves to be more than successful and seductive for a first trial gallop. At once melancholic, varied and inventive, the album distils a rock art that we would like to hear more often. - Official website

DIM GRAY

FLOWN

AUTRE LABEL

ATMOSPHERIC ROCK