Hold Your Love Still

After delivering the autobiographical About Love and Loving Again, a dark and immersive set featuring lengthy song runtimes, Christian Kjellvander returns with his second album of the COVID-19 pandemic, the more outward-looking Hold Your Love Still. Touching on topics including climate change and wealth inequality, its not exactly a pick-me-up, but among its stretches of grim existentialism are flashes of hope, affection, and even optimism. The albums audience-silencing opener, "Western Hemisphere," is a nearly a cappella entry, with the songwriters resonant baritone accompanied only by eventual string tremolos, the occasional series of piano notes, a strummed guitar here, and an organ or bass phrase there. Inspired by the power of nature, it contains the title phrase "Hold your love still," which is emphasized by the sound of thunder. After getting our attention, Kjellvander brings in a full band for "Notes from the Drive Between Simat and Alcoi," a striding folk-rock travelogue set against Spanish landscapes and the areas labor movement. The somber "Baleen Whale," with its brushed snare and plodding chord progressions, identifies with a beached whale, and, later in the track list, the howling "Disgust for the Poor" offers a comparatively more urgent and exasperated critique of society. As for the records more optimistic moments, "Terns Took Turns" is essentially an affectionate tribute soundtracked by melodic guitar, light strings, and a brushed snare that switches to sticks for the chorus. Kjellvander brings it home with the albums most hopeful track, the tender, birdsong-injected "Dream 2066," which envisions a future among friends, whistling on the street, pink and brown color accents, and "a sense of responsibility" and community. Serious and timely, its another poignant outing for the Swede, made even more so by its moments of warmth. ~ Marcy Donelson