Fredrik Klingwall & Julia Black
Sentience

Fredrik Klingwall has been collaborating with Romanian singer Julia Black to make this album called Sentience. And they have in turn enlisted the help of some strong musicians and competent people for mixing and mastering, that sort of thing. The artwork isn’t great but it works alright for the album. It is an album that can be described as a pretty atmospheric and quite abstract creation with excellent vocals from Julia Black.

Sentience is a fitting title for the album, it feels a tad dreamy and it blends pop, rock, and some mixings of jazz and perhaps a sense of cinema. The production is really good, the sounds strong and the vocals are quite great, and it is an album with many strong elements that mix together and shows much depth and presence. But it is also an album where you wait for a climax that never really comes; it is like the album is building up to something that never comes, like a movie missing the final act.

It is a good album but it could have used one or two faster songs as I think the album lacks some dynamics that stops it from being anything more than just a good album. To be great this album would have needed some songs that are faster as the album is a bit slow and feels a little bit tired at times. It is good, the atmospheres are great, as are the vocals but it is something lacking, that little bit extra that turns good albums great, that is missing from this album. But that doesn’t mean we have a poor album on our hands, just one that isn’t as good as it could have been.

If you like the dreamier stuff this album will be appealing to you with the great atmosphere and wonderful vocals. But in the end it is an album that doesn’t quite live up to what it could have been. With some pacier songs this album could have been quite brilliant but it isn’t, it is a pretty fun album but I think that it will be very soon forgotten despite its great atmospheres.

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