It’s funny that the opening words to “Öppen” – the opening song of Kallsup’s second album Alldeles För Nära – are “Brus hörs,” or “Static is heard,” because it doesn’t stop there. The Swedish six-piece band drapes – even splays – static over the whole album.
At times that’s all that’s heard, like being stuck in the center of a beehive. The full opening line is “Brus hörs namn dör ut / Stora drömmar håller nån mjukt,” meaning “Static is heard, a name fades away / Big dreams hold someone gently.” That establishes this song as the in-universe gospel of the album: Good things are coming, but at the very least, fantasizing about good things is possible.
Amongst the headache bursting out of the beehive, there is still the sweetness of honey. Static is there, the name fades away, but big dreams still hold you. Therefore: “Öppna så får du se,” meaning “Open it up and you will see.” The opening song is an introduction, an announcement, and an acknowledgement of the state of affairs: You are here in the heart of the beehive, and over the noise, you cannot even remember your own name. But there is still sweetness. Just listen to the rest of the album and you will see.
You seamlessly climb into the next song, “Kino” (or “Cinema”). It is again funny when she says “Och jag vet / Vi trängs i ett horn,” meaning “And I know / We’re huddled in a corner.” The instrumental sounds like something is encumbering it and making it skid like a huddled hurdle, not a screech. There’s an important distinction here as she says, “Borde, borde släppa taget ibland / Men bara lite,” meaning, “I should, I really should let go sometimes / But just a little.” The key phrase here is “just a little.” There are little skids to a stop here and there, not screeching across the boundary where she says, “syns mycket tydligare nu,” meaning, “it is much clearer now.” The song rhapsodizes clarity but it is still dazzled by an illusion, and the skids to a halt make much more sense when you hear “I almost believe they’re real.” It sounds like these unsteady steps are a result of repeating the mistake of believing in something that everything you believed in, right before tells you is not real.
But how can it not be when it feels so real? True to the core of the song, the instrumentation is redolent of The Cure, Ride, my bloody valentine, and The Radio Dept. (in their I Don’t Need Love, I’ve Got My Band era.) All of those bands notoriously procure a milieu of dreamscapes and phantasmagoria. The title of the song is pertinent now: Cinema. What you see and how you feel is real, but the thing itself is not. The last lines – a repetition of “She says, she says, she says,” – are a superb display of denial, the equivalent of a kid who is deprived of something they want, trying to argue their way into getting it by saying, “But… But…, But…,”. Yet they come up short of an actual argument, simply pouting and sulking.
A staticky, thorny guitar accosts (or even ambushes) you on “Undantagshelgen” (The Exceptional Weekend), which feels like scratchy wool against the soft skin of your neck, only tempered by the ethereal, mellifluous vocals of Eline Gustafsson. Sounds build up and up and up, as if you are filling up a balloon with air. Just when you think it is about to implode, it relaxes into a strum, but before you can get used to that, it launches back into the previous build-up. This time it sounds like you let go of the same balloon, and the air is steadily exiting it as it flails in the ether. You feel restlessness, an unease in your bones. And she makes that concrete with the first lines, “Naglar mot brännskadad hud,” meaning “Fingernails against burnt skin.” So you were right to feel disconcerted.
“Unga hjältars dagar brinner ut” (“The days of young heroes are burning out”), she says. And you find out this is jadedness of modernity, the rigidity of heroism, watching someone be hard on themselves in regards to morality, and wanting them to take it easy. “Om det ryms ett sista stilla slag / Ta det nu” (“If there’s room for one last quiet… / Take it now”) is part of the closing words of the song. And there is a reprise of “The days of young heroes are burning out,” which makes you remember the pressurized air in the balloon. Taking into account the instrumental, you can deduce that the person let go, no longer adhering to the principles of heroism or their stringent beliefs, of which the narrator is trying to disabuse them. They let go of the pressure and instead took that one last quiet beat.
“Andra höstars spoken” (“Ghosts of Other Autumns”) is ballad-like. It sounds like if Bôa and Built to Spill collaborated, and if that collaboration was covered by Ambulance LTD and Placebo. The chorus identifies itself instrumentally by being momentarily climactic. But other than that, the guitar bounces back and forth like a loose spring sticking out of a chair, and the percussion is consistent and strong like a healthy heartbeat: Steady, there for you unfailingly, just like what the lyrics get across. “I såna fall / Gör jag det en gång till / I såna fall / Vill jag visa dig en gång till” (“In that case / I’ll do it one more time / In that case / I want to show you one more time”). This makes you realize two things. One: The guitar is capricious because it is the musical incarnation of the person with “no foothold”. And two: The percussion is steadfast because it is the narrator, promising to try again ceaselessly to keep that person from falling, or at the very least keep them swinging back and forth.
Then you are in a cyclone produced by a pounding headache that ricochets and stays ringing in your mind on “Min största vän” (“My Greatest Friend”), the longest song on the album, clocking in at almost 6:30. “Du biter dig i kinden och såren blir till ärr” means “You bite your cheek, and the wounds turn into scars.” The narrator of this song means to induce a lasting impression; when Kallsup made a song about this, they created a soundscape that mimics the same kind of inducement, a kind of distorted scream that won’t let up. Deerhunter guitar riffs come to mind.
On “Imma” (“Mist”), Gustafsson sings: “Distansen till ett / Ett helt vanligt liv / Kan inte låta mig vara / Låta bli” (“The distance to a / Perfectly ordinary life / Won’t leave me be / Won’t let me be”). Fittingly, the percussion sounds like it is staggering forward, like a drunk person limping home or fighting against something preventing it from being played, or from existing. It is like a mist, a gap, a gulf between this and an ordinary life. “Ser allt (se dig om) / Ser allt (se dig om) / Ser allt ovanifrån (se dig om)” means “See everything (look around) / See everything (look around) / See everything from above (look around)”. It is hard to tell if this is a spiteful taunt or a desperate plea, because it is hard to tell if both people are stuck in the mist or if it is one of them. If it’s both of them, it sounds vindictive, because you can’t see anything in a mist. Therefore, this is just a cruel jeer to remind you that you can’t see anything. But if it is just one of them stuck, the other one might be pleading with them to look around and try to see things through the mist and come to their senses.
“Chimär (GBG)” (“Chimera”) is a fire-breathing female monster in Greek mythology having a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. The sound is darker here and more honed in on the pitch black: An inverse spotlight. Sneaky and ominous-sounding, the guitars are brighter and lighter, but like a strand of fire you stare into until you go blind. The closing guitar sounds like it melts off into its cessation. The sound stalks close but then falters and vaporizes. “Tanken kommer alldeles för nära” (“The thought comes far too close”), Gustafsson keeps repeating, even when she realizes that the only way to alleviate the sting of not having what you think everyone else has is letting it go and letting it be. The thought is just too powerful, but like the guitar, it can only approach you and then evaporate, once the reminder materializes that letting it go and letting it be is the way.
“Vänd mot mig” (“Turn Towards Me”) is about taking chances, the freezing cold, and going home. And much like that trajectory of actions, the instrumentation twists into knots and lets go several times. The title is another plea. And the ending augurs the closeness of the end: The end of the album, of the suffering, of feeling stuck in a beehive.
“Fritt fall” (“Free Fall”) and “Malmavägen” (“Malma Road”) close out the album. Remember how you could not help repeating the mistake of believing something? Well, true to that, you are back there again: Back to the beginning on “Fritt fall”. You still believe what is not real. And chillingly, the album ends on the question: “Is it all a dream?”
Maybe there was no static. Maybe there never was a name. Maybe there was no beehive. Maybe there never was a sweetness. You had to listen to all of the album to find out: No one can promise to make it better. No one can promise to make it feel real. No one can make you remember who you are.
This is where you need to know what the title of the album means. Alldeles För Nära, or Far Too Close. Far too close, yes, but never quite there.
Take a listen to Alldeles För Nära below.
Written by Leo August
