Sondre Lerche: Faces Down : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When did Scandinavia get so damn warm and cuddly? On his debut LP, nineteen-year-old Norwegian Sondre Lerche combines a rich Donovan-ian voice with mellow orchestral charm. There is a dark undertone that balances the record: Lerche's voice breathes a reassuring warmth into the otherwise morbid "Dead Passengers" and musters up melancholic romance in the slightly jaded, violin-aided "You Know So Well." Lerche parodies Thom Yorke on the sonorous "Side Two," droning wonderfully about the "tortured young and old." Then, just when things might be getting too heavy, he delivers "Suffused With Love," a shiny, dippy number that seems custom-made for that requisite scene in the big-screen romance - the one where the music plays while the young lovers chase the bus arm-in-arm in the pouring rain. The mix of wit, depth and kicky Sixties pop in Faces Down provides another bright spot from up north.

MARK HEALY
(RS 909 – November 14, 2002)