SWEDE HARMONIES
ABBA’s comeback album? We say thank you for the music
AFTER clocking up close to 120,000 pre-orders in the UK alone, ABBA’s first album in 40 years is already a huge commercial success without even hitting the shelves.
But there is no doubt that the release of Voyage – described as the band’s swan song – represents a high risk strategy.
Could Agnetha Faltskog, 71, Bjorn Ulvaeus, 76, Benny Andersson, 74, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75, conjure up the same magic after four decades apart? And of course it’s not just the older music fans they have to please.
Thanks to the success of the Mamma Mia! films – and streaming services such as Spotify – a whole younger generation love their music too.
Luckily, the band rise to the task with almost immeasurable ease.
This is no great re-invention. Each of the 10 new songs have the ingredients that fans old and new will recognise instantly. Soaring choruses and impeccable harmonies abound. But, in typical
ABBA-style, under the surface lurks a dark underbelly of brooding discontent. I Can Be That Woman paints a vivid picture of domestic struggle, alcoholism and abuse. “I feel sick and my hands are shaking, this is how all our fights have begun,” sings Agnetha. As befitting two men deep into their 70s, songwriters Benny and Bjorn draw upon a range of subjects from the perils of old age to the emotional fallout of being a parent. “I know that this shouldn’t be a traumatic event but it is,” sings Agnetha on Keep an Eye on Dan, a bombastic discodrenched nod to sharing a child with an ex partner.
Melancholy seems to seep into nearly every song. Even a quirky track about bumblebees turns into an ode mourning their demise around the world. “A world without him. I dread to think what that would be. And I imagine my distress. It would be a new kind of loneliness,” sings Anni-Frid.
Opening track I Still Have Faith In You, meanwhile, is a more upbeat yet tender nod to the band’s past. “We stand on a summit, humble and grateful to have survived,” they declare.
For that, we’re all grateful.