Sweden and Scandinavia are known for their great music artists, especially in the indie area. Every day is a new chance for a new indie band to come up but folk female vocalists like Anne Ternhaim are something else. Previous year, she released her fifth album For The Young.
Enigmatic and in the shadow of Sophie Zelmani as the most famous Swedish girl, Anna has carefully build up her career and released great records. The most successful one is her debut Somebody Outside. She started playing guitar when she was ten years old. She wrote songs and collected material for the time when her talent was about to shine on the stage. Her talent made her one of the most awarded musicians in her home country.
Anna is a perfect amalgam of pure Joni Mitchell folk and indie rock with guitar in focus. Her true treasure are lyrics, both mysterious and simple. She writes from her experiences and the life speaks from her lyrics. There is no artificiality or hermetic, everything is transparent and open for the listener. Interpretation wise, Anna is very self-conscious and mature and she will never bore you. With each listen, the album succeeds to appear as more and more fresh.
The vocal is very sensual, similar to Laura Marling’s or Agnes Obel’s. Anna is never intrusive or aggressive, rather easy in her simplicity. The fifth album is a progress of her previous work. There is a very little space for interventions. We are still hearing about love, life challenges, youth and ephemeral things. She just didn’t want to risk.
For The Young is maybe more blues than any of her previous albums. The beautiful folk vocal is now even more quite, especially in the opening Hours and title song For The Young. These are the most beautiful songs on the album, hands down. I would also accentuate Lonely One and Don’t Leave as wonderful love ballades. Weak spots include Walked Right In and closing track Just As Friends because they sound like a cliché, which is something Anna almost never allows to herself.
This is a solid album with no big surprises. It is another release worth reclaiming Anna’s status.
