In 2004, when Efterklang released their splendid debut full-length, Tripper, the Danish group appeared to have a tantalizing array of possible routes before them. Combining string instruments with well-manicured electronics, their music drew easy comparison to the wide-scale vistas of Sigur Rós or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and their work with such collaborators as the Amina string quartet and even the Danish National Chamber Orchestra pegged them as front-runners in the European wing of the burgeoning indie Classical movement.
So it is hard not to be a little dismayed to see that Efterklang have settled for what is likely the least daring-- if perhaps not the least lucrative-- path going forward. Their earlier recordings featured a core group of eight to 10 members, with their numbers frequently strengthened further by additional guest musicians, massed choirs, and chamber groups. Beginning with their 4AD album Magic Chairs in 2010, however, Efterklang scaled down to a quartet and, since the departure of drummer Thomas Husmer, have continued on as a trio, with nearly everything organized around the unflavored vocals of singer/composer Casper Clausen. In the process of winnowing down, they have gradually re-crafted their style from sweeping orchestral panoramas into a more standard form of theatric indie pop with ornamental accompaniment. On their latest album, Piramida, this shift results in music that on its surface feels ambitious and sophisticated but which manages never to take any real chances.
Even in the group's current pared-down version, Efterklang still have an exceptional palette of sounds at their fingertips, and once again the list of guest credits is a long one-- violinist Peter Broderick, pianist Nils Frahm, a brass section from the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, and, yes, a 70-piece girls' choir. The album's concept is a grand one as well: Piramida takes its name from a distant Arctic Circle ghost town to which the members of Efterklang traveled in 2011 and gathered field recordings to incorporate into their new compositions. Despite the group's diligent labor, however, the amassed instrumental arsenal is too often put to exactly the sort of patient crescendos, stately percussion, and icy choral backup vocals that have long since become soundtrack clichés. It is not at all jarring, for instance, to hear "Modern Drift", one of Efterklang's better pop songs, as the score for an Audi commercial.
Nevertheless, one of the genuine pleasures of Efterklang's music is that you never know what sound will be heard first on any given track. It might be a mournful swoop of brass, a gently loping drumbeat, or an unexpected splash of New Wavey synth. This variety does create, for the first listen or two at least, a small but crucial bit of dramatic suspense. Yet too often, once we've been drawn inside Efterklang's open environment, that sense of surprise and discovery is quickly abandoned as the music reverts back to safer indie pop climes, so that once again Efterklang can seem merely the frosty Danish cousins of Arcade Fire or Grizzly Bear.
On the opening "Hollow Mountain", a title that could serve as an uncharitable descriptor of the music here, the first thing we hear is an Arctic field recording of a struck and plucked metal oil tank. Soon these metallic sounds are combined with strings, drums, and a ghost-voices-from-a-glacier choir; it all sounds cool, especially if you know a little of the album's back story, but that initial field recording could just as easily be a music box recorded in studio. Either way, it's all swept aside soon enough to make way for the first of Casper Clausen's conventional pop choruses. (Efterklang's vocal melodies are never quite as majestic or memorable as their build-up might otherwise suggest.)
That's just one example of what goes wrong on Piramida. Overall, the album's a tug-of-war between the group's lofty conceptual ambitions and their strange aversion to actual musical risk-taking. As a result, Piramida's impact is a bit like that of an epic but disappointing Hollywood blockbuster-- the audience doesn't necessarily care how much work went into its creation; we just want to see the budget up there on the screen.
