Irving Stone named his biographical novel about Michelangelo The Agony and the Ecstasy. Sweden's Sarah Assbring sculpts her high-concept pop out of similar emotional extremes-- and quasi-religious themes-- on her third album as El Perro del Mar, From the Valley to the Stars (out now in Sweden, and coming to the U.S. in April on the Control Group), which suggests in its title both the deepest depths and the most exalted heights. On El Perro del Mar's self-titled 2006 breakthrough album, the agony rained down from Assbring's voice, contrasting exquisitely with the ecstatic Phil Spector-style production, sashaying girl-group rhythms, and songs about candy. Her latest leaves its ecstasy to uplifting lyrics and lets the vocals' agony seep into starker, sadder arrangements. The result is an album that's more conceptually unified than its predecessor and has its share of intimately compelling songs, but could also stand to give its misery a little more company.
Last year, ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman made her solo debut under the name Taken By Trees with an album that put Spectorian instrumental flourishes into the sparser vocabulary of melancholic folk-pop. Called Open Field, the introspective record found a barren, beautiful middle ground between El Perro del Mar's valley and stars. Here, Assbring sends out forlorn-sounding songs about hope, happiness, imagination, the sun, the time we have left, and other precious things from the place where prayers are usually cast aloft: a church. A church-ready organ underpins most of the songs on From the Valley to the Stars, and combined with mantra-like lyrics and choir-like harmonies, particularly on "Happiness Won Me Over", for a set of modern love songs. Strings, horns, some subdued drums, and a few times some jingling piano also round out the arrangements, and sly references to pop history (the jaunty "Somebody's Baby" finds joy where Jackson Browne found jealousy) still recur, but this time the effect isn't cinematic so much as ecclesiastical.
Humble religiosity and downcast optimism resonate throughout the album, offering both love and music as redemption. Still, as on El Perro del Mar's previous outing, Assbring is at her best when her heart-wrenching songs can stand (or at least kneel) on their own. "Glory to the World" has the most in common with the smiling-through-tears pop that made the last record so endearing; Assbring's layered vocals bring us flowers and ambiguous glory as shrill woodwinds chirp over a descending organ progression. Slow, restrained first single "How Did We Forget" returns to the prior record's doo-wop feel. Despite the understated loveliness of Assbring's "baby, baby"s, the track is an oddity on From the Valley to the Stars-- a song with lyrics as heartbroken as the music. Elsewhere,"You Can't Steal a Gift" joins "Somebody's Baby" as a piano-based, (relatively) upbeat song giving a glimmer of hope that still sounds barely out of reach throughout most of the album. "You just can't hide away," Assbring repeats, joined again by woodwinds and horns over organ triplets and walking piano bass notes.
Repetition was a big part of El Perro del Mar, but on the new album, it's carried out to new lengths, not always rewardingly. Opener "Do Not Despair" finds reassurance in the stars, and its organ-- together with its subtle, optimistic wordplay, "Today's gone to bed and tomorrow's unmade"-- gives the song a psalm-like resonance. "To Give Love" tries to extract maximal meaning out of its title's three words, straining against the bounds of language like classic Van Morrison: "There's still time/ To give love, to give love, to give love, to give love, to give love." But the wandering bells and synths of the title track and the wedding-recessional organ peals of "Jubilee" anchor songs slight enough to float away, while "Inner Island" admonishes us to hold onto the place inside where we'd escape as kids-- for four minutes. Instrumental "Inside the Golden Egg" and one-sentence "The Sun Is an Old Friend" come off as little more than fragments.
If Taken By Trees' debut did spare yet Spector-informed depressive pop better than From the Valley to the Stars, then fellow Swedes Club 8's "Jesus Walk With Me" more effectively found religion. Relying on acoustic guitar arpeggios and plainspoken, communicative lyrics rather than vague repetitions, the song from last year's The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Dreaming found parallels between faith in God and faith in a lover, as Assbring's latest also does, and hit upon something poignant. From the Valley to the Stars has hills that rise close to El Perro del Mar's peaks, and its cohesive vision is a pleasure to behold. At the same time, though, it harps on its themes with an overzealous single-mindedness, occasionally letting flimsy stuff support an overarching conceit that requires foundations of marble. Or at least a really big old Italian ceiling and a whole lot of paint.
