Imagine a sonic pile-up involving Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Joy Division (sans the ghost of Ian Curtis), Nine Inch Nails and darkest Depeche Mode and suddenly 'Exploring Beauty', the recent release from the moody young Danes of Düreforsög, will start to make sense – sort of.

Taking an obvious delight in setting up dark, delicate soundscapes and then battering them down with howls, growls and waves of distortion, Düreforsög has made an album that is almost impossible to take seriously. Unless of course their target audience is the sort of willfully disaffected, Goth obsessed fifteen year-old for whom Placebo lyrics are too complex.

With vocalist Boriz S snarling out lines like, “I’d kill for family dinner / and I’m desperate for a T-bone” the temptation to hit the stop button is overwhelming – except for the lingering fear that maybe he’s being ironic, and to turn it off would be an admission of woeful un-coolness.

Unfortunately, 'Exploring Beauty' offers little more than the possible benefit of feeling clever for ‘getting’ it. There are snippets of enchanting sound, but they are too far between – and feel too accidental – to be compelling. For the most part the album reeks of over-exertion. It feels like the band doesn’t trust the music enough to be led by it; instead they throw layers of noise over anything that has any promise of being introspective or thought-provoking. Even the stand-out track “Living in Vain” which sounds like the bastard child of “Atmosphere” and “Master and Servant” (in a good way) collapses under the weight of Boriz S’s nonsensical navel gazing.

All in all, this record is best left out for the kids… it’ll keep them from nicking and scratching up your Placebo CDs


Track Listing
Space Lonelines
Beach
Ghost Chills
In My Shoe
Smile
Rubber Man
To Turn the World Inside Out
Prima Ballerina
Living in Vain
Honeybee