Nicolai Dunger - Play Album Review

Nicolai Dunger himself adorns the cover of Play, a monochrome study lying on the ground, fag in mouth, as he plays with a mongrel dog who seems to be making best efforts to flee the scene as quickly as his four legs will carry him. This slightly odd cameo of man and man's best friend does little to dispel the thinking that, dismayed by the public's complete indifference to his previous eleven albums, the Swede has gone on one almighty rock n' roll bender and had somehow captured the mutt in the way that British people on the way home from a bender used to steal those flashing lights you found alongside roadworks.

With your europhile glass half full, you could just as reasonably claim that Dunger has produced his most accessible work in years, duet Tears In A Child's Eye capably returning the favour to Nina Persson after collaborating on her last outing as A Camp, Colonia. The case for the defence could produce exhibit B, the sixties flavours and upbeat poppiness of openers Heart And Soul and Crazy Train both carrying a hint of promise which could spark low-key scenes of adoration amongst the more whimsical indie types amongst us.

But the time for politics is over, and whilst it would be merely cruel to predict that Play is highly unlikely to put the Swede on MTV, the album's early promise is rapidly dispelled by the oddball alt.country of When Your Work is Done and Time Left To Spend's kitsch ordinariness. Perhaps the loss of urgency is caused by the erstwhile songwriters belief that he sounds like Van Morrison - both Can You and Many Years Have Passed would appear to support the theory that he does, as opposed to it actually being true. Whatever the reason, sadly for Dunger it seems that his former vocation as a gardener may be the one that offers the better career prospects.

Andy Peterson