The difficulty of reviewing for Punktastic is that we get asked to cover genres that we probably don’t really know all that much about. Mostly we have to decline the request, but that all becomes the more difficult when a band member of someone who we would cover then goes on to release a new record. Call it public interest or something. Anyway, Norweigan emo band Wintermare probably do fall into the PT-reviewing bracket, but whether their frontman Uno Moller‘s new project actually does or not is debatable. As a result here’s a knocked together review written by someone who likes quirky pop songs, but doesn’t listen to them all that often…
This record is basically a stripped down affair with Uno and his acoustic. In places it’s actually bloody lovely (opening track ‘For All That Dawns’ is brilliant), at others it’s kind of hauntingly stripped and full of emotion ‘Three’. I actually feel this is the kind of record where I get the most out of it listening to two or three songs at a time and then listening to something else, just because it’s one of those records that takes a lot out of you. It’s ‘heavy’ emotionally and it takes it’s toll. I found listening to it as a full record made me start to reach for the skip button in places. Don’t get me wrong, individually some of these songs are beautiful, but as a full album it just began to wear me down a bit.
You can stream this on bandcamp and I’d recommend you do so. If you like acoustic pop with a bit of a twist I’m certain you’ll enjoy this record. Hey, if someone with literally no knowledge of the genre thinks it’s OK, then it must be good. Right?