Ongoing Dispute

Showcasing an angsty, unsettled indie rock with dark post-punk and heavier inclinations, Denmarks Yung made their international debut with A Youthful Dream in mid-2016. The quartet spent the next nearly five years preparing the follow-up, with bandleader and main songwriter Mikkel Holm Silkjaer citing members varied musical tastes as a challenge in finding the right balance of noise and tunefulness. The resulting Ongoing Dispute, their full-length debut for the PNKSLM label, does succeed in homing in on a consistently hooky, distorted, and dissatisfied sound. The album launches into grudges with a driving, rambling borderline dance-rock on Autobiography, an uptempo track that has Holm mocking his guitar player, confronting a former mate, and ultimately asking for an apology for the friendship you threw away. Hes interrupted at times during the song by segments of churning, head-banging guitar unisons and, later, duetting, ultimately dissonant guitar solos that arent quite able to see eye to eye. While the pace lets up for a wearier second track (Lust and Learning), the albums ringing, sometimes soaring guitar atmospheres and persistent urgency do not. Among songs with titles like Unresolver and Dismantled -- the latter track a vaguely trippy outing -- are the triplet-metered, droning Progress and Above Water, a song that approaches something musically uplifting, if it, and by extension the album, never quite gets there. If emotionally unresolved, Ongoing Dispute does deliver on engaging hooks and rousing choruses, at least until that wistful outro, Friends on Ice, which closes the album in a wash of chiming guitars and circular thought. ~ Marcy Donelson

将来を嘱望されながら活動休止に追い込まれたデンマークの4人組が、5年ぶりとなる新作と共にシーンに帰還。ネアオコの詩情を持ったポスト・パンクなのか、それともハードコアの激情を持ったギター・ポップなのか。どちらとも言えそうなユニークさはそのままにバンドはスケールアップ。全9曲を貫く奔放さは、彼らが変に器用にならずに、いまなお衝動に突き動かされている証。青春の混乱はまだ終わらない。
bounce (C)山口智男