Ásgeir

Afterglow ONE LITTLE INDIAN. CD/DL/LP

Influences smother individuality on the Icelander’s successor to the 2014 smash In The Silence.

Despite a new lap-top electro slant and dashes of treated vocal, much is familiar on Icelandic singersongwriter Ásgeir Trausti’s follow-up to his 2014 debut English-language album In The Silence. The global best-seller drew comparisons with Bon Iver and so it is with Afterglow, which co-opts the former’s electro-R&B angle. He also seems to have cultivated a fondness for James Blake. The songs – especially the acousticbedded New Day and kinetic, shuffling I Know You Know – are memorable but lack the preceding album’s drama. In The Silence was, with the help of John Grant, an Englishlanguage reconfiguration of the Icelandic Dýrð í dauðaþögn but there is no transliteration this time; though one track, the string-infused and gospel-ish Fennir yfir, is in Icelandic, and is this album’s highlight. Unfortunately, Afterglow further embraces, and is overshadowed by, his influences.