Obviously, Scandinavians shouldn’t be making pop music. Yes, this narcolepsy-inducing subspecies of emotionless, inveterately level-headed neat freaks are great when it comes to organising eminently liveable social democracies, or the mass production of inexpensive, minimalistic, unobtrusive furniture. But the same complete lack of personality that makes them good at redistributing wealth or designing tasteful bookshelves lends itself imperfectly to an artform predicated on inner turmoil, trauma, and primitive sexual and aggressive instincts run amok, turned into popular song, and broadcast to millions for profit.
A look at the most notable bands to emerge from Scandinavia only proves the point; Abba, perfect tunes made in a lab and sung by photogenic androids; Roxette, edgy mid-90s rock’n’roll for middle-aged, middle-class, sexually frustrated women; and of course, a-ha, purveyors of radio-and-stadium-friendly but ice-cold synthpop, except it’s not ice-cold in the compellingly sinister manner perfected by, say, Depeche Mode, but rather ice-cold in the same way that, well, Ikea furniture is ice-cold, i.e. unrelentingly and eye rollingly clean, pristine, Nordic.
Except for the vocals, maybe. For though Hunting High and Low’s moody synthpop sound is indeed alarmingly reminiscent of mid-80s Depeche Mode, there’s one key difference, in the form of Morten Harket’s reedy croon. Dave Gahan’s reptilian baritone imbued Martin Gore’s inhuman electronic soundscapes with something subtly diabolical, whereas Harket conjures the pathetic and desperate whine of a recently dumped schoolboy threatening to kill himself over the phone to his indifferent, bubble-gum chewing ex-girlfriend while she’s doing her nails.
The ubiquitous dance-anthem “Take On Me” and the cinematic proto-Bond-theme “Hunting High and Low” were galactic megahits, so it’s easy to overlook the fact that their lyrics are shot through with cloying separation anxiety – begging the head cheerleader (of the Nordic walking team) to give you a chance, because “it’s not better to be safe than sorry”, and threatening to hunt her down if she ghosts. But this shockingly limp-wristed co-dependency becomes much harder to ignore in the record’s second half, when a succession of comparatively unremarkable album tracks with titles like “Love is the Reason” and “I Dream Myself Alive” deliver levels of provincial, pubescent heartache that not even an imperial era Gary Barlow would have dared inflict on his teenage audience.
Clearly, then, the genderless and post-human Scandinavian mannequins of a-ha were entirely detached from eros, substituting sexless droopy-dicked pining for forceful eroticism. It thus stands to reason that they should have been equally alienated from thanos, sublimating their primal aggression into a neurotic haze of self-involved social dislocation. Which, incidentally, is the second theme of Hunting High and Low. Its most masterful expression comes on the bitterly sardonic and eerie – but also anthemic – “The Sun Always Shines on TV”, a slice of buccaneering Duran Duran-esque stadium rock amidst the pristine synthpop. But dully Nordic, emotionally repressed malcontent is everywhere you look on this album – on “Train of Thought”, an OK Computer-like meditation on going mad in an office job, or the escapist fantasy of “Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale”, where the album’s sound reaches peak-Depeche Mode, except for the incongruous intrusion of a Morrissey-esque falsetto at its conclusion.
Does Hunting High and Low suck, then? Of course not; it’s great. Competently made, smoothly produced, excellent tunes, never a dull moment, and 80s hits so multitudinous that the material on this album alone would have been enough to get an entire tour bus of bequiffed jabot-sporting new romantic hermaphrodites on Pop Quiz. Ultimately, it’s the very opposite of punk or folk music; note perfect and agreeable as opposed to the wilful sloppiness and obstreperousness of the former, mannered and aloof as opposed to the earthy authenticity of the latter. The sheer puerility and simplicity of the bubble-gum pop lyrics only makes the album seem more inhumanly manufactured, whereas the moments of emotionally repressed, slightly autistic alienation paradoxically come across as the most sincere. And so, in the end, it really is the musical equivalent of an Ikea wardrobe: beneath the flawless design, the screws are loose.
Overall rating: * * * *
Standout track: “The Sun Always Shines on TV”