There is more luster to the Icelandic, 14-member Benni Hemm Hemm's second album, as the brassy pomp of their self-titled debut is mostly abandoned, or tucked into the opening and closing corners of each piece. In its place are the shimmers of the guitar and delicate wind passages: "Brekkan" is content to have a glockenspiel and strings sift lazily through the pretty three-note descents of the brass which, though usually overpowering, back off to give the drums and bass center stage. What the album mostly figures as is an understated decoration of a landscape: the few repeated words of "Snjórljóssnjór" and its locomotive rhythm, or the dusty desert suggested in the banjo strums of "Stoffer".
But the pulse of Kajak turns out to be measured by those punchy hodgepodge introductions and exits, where cymbals, strings, and all manner of brass crash in unison, thus forming the lump of material from which the meat of a song is carved. The "meat," particularly on "Stoffer" and finale "Egísa", can suffer by being whittled away to almost nothing, resulting in listless rhythms, epically held notes, and rocking-chair guitar patterns. Sometimes, as on "Abbastúfur", this stripping away works: Benedikt Hermannsson conducts bass and tenor male vocalists around the soft and glittering sounds of the guitar. The full, flawless sound of this chorus is one of the best features on the album, and reappears later on "Ég á bát". When the song builds to include basic punches of percussion, the brass threatens to overpower the human voices, but in the end each part perfectly complements the other.
There was considerably more English on the debut, but it seems inconsequential here that the lyrics are in Icelandic. "Sex eða sjö" is another quiet number that succeeds because it's pulled out of somnambulism by marching drums, another strong chorus, and most of all, the deep vocal lines. The urgency of many instruments joining in sets many of the songs apart from the ruminative, airy acoustics of a song like "Ég á bát". Still, by changing up predictable guitar chords just slightly-- by hollowing them out and creating surprising vocal harmonies around them-- the songs become summery memorabilia as opposed to forgettable. But for almost every one to finish with a bombast flourish à la Neutral Milk Hotel can be frustrating, and when such colorful volume is fully embraced ("Mónakó"), the song is too brief, its consistent 1:49 of noise just a fleeting alternative to the norm: lullabies that age well-- and go out with a predictable, usually affecting bang.
