If the War on Drugs were twice younger and born in Norway, they might – if they were lucky – release an album like Virkelig’s delightful debut LP.
Just a few weeks ago, we offered you a special playlist with 25 tracks from Scandinavia sung only in local languages, to demonstrate the beauty and singularity of music also in Norwegian.
If we were compiling this playlist today, we’d probably include one of the pieces from Virkelig’s debut album, “Lykke til i livet“, which means “Good luck in life”. For example, just wait for the chorus of this 4-minute piece called “Evig Ekko” (“Eternal Echo”), probably our favourite piece off this new LP.
This trio of Tobias Aamodt, Sondre Lund Johansen and Erlend Nygaard might seem like newcomers, and their LP does have this special kind of energy – and naivety – you expect from debut albums, but they’ve been around three years already since their 2015 welcome single “Cecilie“, and have played dozens of shows including at festivals, with prestigious Øya and Trænafestivalen this year.
The new record, as they declare themselves in the official description, is “filled with big city anxiety, street pop with Norwegian lyrics”, and it shows “a rock band that treads the War on Drugs’ path, combining the simple with the grand.”
For us, it’s simply a relatively mature debut by an objectively young band (those high school friends are just around 19 years old!). It’s full of very good songwriting, it sounds close to impressive for a band twice younger than their the War on Drugs heroes, and last but not least – that language!
Stream “Lykke til i livet” LP on Bandcamp and Spotify.
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