After aiming for the heavens with the blown-out and majestic concept album
All These Worlds Are Yours
, the Swedish dreamers
Holy
return with
Ryder
, a record that scales the ambition way back, cuts out almost all the guitars, and increases the emotional content by a fair margin. On the previous record, the band's architect
Hannes Ferm
built giant castles of sound out of layers of echoing guitars, rolling drums, massed voices, and various keyboards -- sometimes so large that they blotted out the emotional content of the words and melodies.
is constructed more modestly, with
Ferm
's lachrymose vocals out in front of banks of vintage keys, simple rhythmic patterns, and the (very) occasional stray guitar. If
All These Worlds
was built out of DNA lifted from
the Flaming Lips
and other like-minded psychedelic alchemists, here the parts are taken from wobbly late-night soft rock, icy synth pop, and songs that sound like what would have happened if
Talk Talk
had recorded for
Captured Tracks
. It's an interesting approach
and co-producer
Jacob Haage
take; they blend a home-cooked, recorded-alone-late-at-night feel with a yearning, almost desperate need to connect with the listener. On songs like "Flames" or "Aries,"
yearningly pours his guts out with the help of titanic synths and pummeling drums that sound like they're struggling to break through the waves of a turbulent sea. These mini-epics are balanced against tracks that have a slightly lighter approach, like the swooning love song "Hot on the Heels of Love," which features backing vocals from
Nora Karlsson
of
Boys
, and the gentle "ILY wild horse." The synths are a little less omnipresent on these songs, but they still fill every last inch of the sonic spectrum, while
's vocals don't feel as much like they are teetering on the precipice of a breakdown. On the very poppy and sweet "My fata morgana," they almost capture some of the warmth of the previous album, in part because
brings the guitars out of storage. It's a brief moment of airy sunshine on a record that otherwise has the blinds drawn and the covers pulled up tight. The chilled grandeur of the synths, the stately tempos, and, above all, the depth of emotion
transmits with his vocals make
almost the exact sonic and emotional opposite of
. Though the differences between the records are clear, it's also plain to see that they were both crafted by someone who knows how to make epic music no matter the size of the materials or scope of the sound. ~ Tim Sendra