I Lost My Color Vision – Burning Hearts
Close to Her – Burning Hearts
Burning Hearts are a due from Finland – thus demonstrating that Sweden doesn’t have a monopoly on perfect pop. They released Aboa Sleeping last month, which is a beautiful little album, a sort of low-key Postal Service without all the hype. Or a lost Magnetic Fields record from the mid-90s.
They’ve got a light touch, and a great handle on how to build a song out of some very simple elements. It’s full songs that like they wafted in effortlessly on the breeze, but which are full of subtlety and depth once you start to pay attention. It moves from sleepy dreamscapes to sunny afternoons and rippling waves on a lake.
It’s intimate, but with none of the dour attitude or quiet melancholy that usually implies. This is a friendly, joyful record, and it’s irresistibly full of life. It moves with its own pace, unmeasured and free. And they take the time to explore. The result is a bunch of songs that seem like they fall out of the spaces in between other records.
Highlights include the opener “I Lost My Color Vision” which virtually demands the tapping of toes and a mischievous smile. And then there’s the melodies and harmonies on “Close to Her,” which are so sweet and pure that you can hardly believe it. “We Walked Among the Trees” which peers at you which twinkling eyes along a diagonal. And “A Peasant’s Dream” sounds like Club 8 in their happiest moods.
Aboa Sleeping isn’t the sort of record that jumps out and grabs you, forcing you to pay attention. It doesn’t have any songs that inspire undying devotion. But it does have nine well-made pop gems, each one deserving of attention and just a little bit of love. And it’s quite likely to end up among my favorite records of the year.