The Legends
Over and over
Labrador
With his first three albums, The Legends' Johan Angergård slowly traveled through his enormous catalogue of musical references, from 60's rock to 80's wave and 90's pop. All the while, The Legends managed to show an originality in their genre-bending musicality that always made them more than a simple retro-act. Still, their musical development seems to leave The Legends with a dilemma for their new album: What should the next logical step be when reaching contemporaray influences in their musical journey. Fuzz R&B? Ringtone shoegaze? Maybe not so surprisingly, "Over and over" takes the opposite chronological direction. Only this time, with the first three albums up their sleeves, The Legends can move on from ordinary reference to actual self-reference. Accordingly, the new album contains bits and pieces from The Legends' previous periods -- fuzz-pop, synth-layers, and quite some Pet Shop Boys'isms -- amalgamated with influences from Johan Angergård's other projects Club 8 and Acid House Kings. Quite logically, "Over and over" therefore lacks the aesthetic uniformity and clear vision that made the first three albums stand out. This becomes most obvious when The Legends noisiest single ever, last fall's brilliant "Seconds away", only two songs later gives way to a clear-sounding, very 60's pop boy-girl duet. What the album lacks in coherence in its sound-design is, in part, made up by Johan Angergård's ever-impressive songwriting and fondness for melodies, especially during the record's strong first half. Still, considering their landmark earlier efforts, I'd expected a little more from The Legends than this motley crew of somewhat divergent reference-pop. But then again, maybe they're just surprising us by transforming from an album-band to a singles-band, just like in the old days.
- Arnulf Köhncke
