The best songs are like people, it's been said, and Sweden's Annika Norlin is the kind of songwriter who knows the reverse can also be true. On "I Wonder Who Is Like This One", the opening track on Norlin's sophomore album as Hello Saferide, More Modern Short Stories From..., she compares herself to "Can't Get You Out of My Head": "Annoying at times, but I make you want to dance." On 2005 debut Introducing..., though, Norlin's storytelling, tunefulness, and sweet, sweet LOLs made her more like "A Postcard to Nina". The same person returns on Hello Saferide's latest, a little older, sometimes wiser, and, for better and for worse, more presentable to your parents.
Bright guitar-pop and neurotic narratives still abound, only this time Norlin's worries are more serious than stalking high-school crushes on AltaVista or having too many drinks on Saturday night. Poignant, wittily crafted first single "Anna" pivots off of a throwaway line from Introducing...'s "I Can't Believe It's Not Love!" to imagine an HIV-curing, Nobel Prize-winning daughter who might've never known heartbreak-- something which the narrator clearly has on her buddy list. At a time when buzzier bands can get by mostly on vibe and tasteful influences, you'll actually need to pay attention all the way through the piano and harmonica of aptly titled male-female duet "Overall" to appreciate why these parents are so worried about their son playing the same violent video games we all did. Bonnie and Clyde fantasy "Middle Class", too, will be more rewarding if you're not multi-tasking.
Much as the U.S. edition of Introducing... had odd recurring motifs like a fear of feet, dislike of sci-fi flicks, and contemplation of suicide by knife, thematic threads help More Modern Short Stories From... cohere into more than a collection of singles. Bob Dylan comes up a couple of times, first on cello- and Hammond-graced "Lund", where an unusually Joni Mitchell-esque Norlin sings about someone her narrator once knew-- - "He came from the south of Sweden/ He spoke just like a Dane"-- who "would have gotten my virginity." That's right before Norlin's tendency toward blush-worthy frankness leads her to a description of first sex, on the uncharacteristically predictable "X Telling Me Something About the Loss of Something Dear, at Age 16". Likewise, Norlin's metaphorical return to the womb on "Parenting Never Ends" leads, musically and lyrically, to the might've-been birth of "Anna".
Norlin's Swedish-language debut last year as Säkert! (which translates, roughly/idiomatically, to "Yeah right, for sure") had her using electric guitar more often than acoustic, a transition she completes on the new album. That shift, coupled with Andreas Mattsson's radio-ready production, means such weaker songs here as generic-sounding modern rocker "Travelling With HS" can't simply fall back on homemade charm. Norlin's onomatopoeic sound effects on delicate, string-draped meditation "Arjeplog" just barely redeem their potential cloyingness, and "Sancho Panza" sums up Hello Saferide's dorky-outsider persona almost too neatly. "25 Days" counts down until the narrator will know whether her budding romance has endured "backpacker girls with newly braided hair and Manu Chao records"; when the guy texts to say he got the dates wrong, she repeats at least one time too many, "You stupid fuck!" As with Morrissey or Motown, Norlin's music is most likable when you have to look close to trace the tracks of her tears.
