Live At Troxy - Fever Ray: Live Album Review
aka Fever Ray is a Swedish electronica and experimental music artist who began as one half of electronic music duo The Knife alongside her brother. In 2009 during a long studio album drought from The Knife she took to writing and creating music on her own under the solo moniker Fever Ray with her 2009 self-titled album. After nearly ten years and a new Knife record in 2013 Fever Ray returned with a second solo record in 2017 as well as an extensive tour backing it. Live At Troxy is a live show recorded last year made up on tracks from both Fever Ray records and marks her second live release as a solo artist.
Review By Lavender:
I was just a bit young and my taste a bit under-developed for Fever Ray to be on my radar in 2009, but by the time The Knife dropped their epic Shaking The Habitual record in 2013 I was all ears. Returning to all of the old Knife and Fever Ray records proved very useful in the coming years when Karen saw fit to release the second Fever Ray record Plunge. While this record was seen by me and many others as a disappointment numerous tracks from Plunge end up on this record and I was hoping with her zany live stage prescence and synthetic instrumentation Fever Ray would turn some of the more arduous listens into gems, but too often the songs I hated in studio format don't get much better live, making the record seriously inconsistent.
For the most part the songs I really enjoyed on Plunge stayed good in their live renditions. An Itch gets a punchy and driving performance as the opening track and A Part Of Us is one of many tunes to benefit from the spectacular percussion in this live arrangement. This Country is one of the tracks that I definitely prefer the live version to the original studio recording especially in the dramatic second half as the chants of "This Country Makes It Hard To Fuck" are so much more potent and impactful than on the more meek studio recording.
On top of this plenty of tracks from Karen's excellent first Fever Ray record make their way into the tracklist and impress pretty consistently. I'm Not Done and Triangle Walks are solid tracks that sound pretty similar to their already solid studio originals. The album closes off with some of the more patient and brooding songs from Fever Ray and they are both pulled off pretty well. Keep The Streets Empty For Me and If I Had A Heart reach some pretty epic conclusions that make the moments very worthwhile as they build and Mama's Hand has some icy keys and a catchy refrain that makes it a treat to land at the end of the record. The real winner here and one of the songs that is the most improved via its live format is To The Moon And Back which gets a bright and full frontal new sheen over the original song that makes it more explosive and gripping than almost anything else here, and one of my favorite tracks on the record.
Unfortunately the other half of the album is predominately filled with songs I already didn't like, and they didn't get any better. Mustn's Hurry, Falling and IDK About You were some of the most taxing and annoying songs on Plunge and none of them really have much of anything redeeming in live format either. Even a few tracks that I enjoyed on Plunge get what little I enjoyed about them stripped away in the live renditions. Wanna Sip is the opening track on Plunge and one that I enjoyed quite a bit but it does not translate over well at all despite the fact that I enjoy its huge electronic breakdowns even more live, the rest of the song is a slog. Red Trails has some pretty rough vocals and mixing issues that don't appear on the studio version as well as a really squeaky sound coming off the keys that is very annoying. Finally there's Concrete Walls and When I Grow Up neither of which are favorites of mine from Fever Ray and neither translate over that well to the live record.
Ultimately while there are enjoyable moments on the record there really isn't enough here to persuade me to ever listen to the live versions of these songs instead of the studio releases. With a lack of new sounds or live composition changes too many of these songs just sound better in the studio or sound equally bad in both contexts, so while the live album is a good listen on its own I don't see myself revisiting it like many of the other live records I've heard this year. 5/10
