Yes, it’s here. Finally. This month sees the release of the brand new album from September, across Scandinavia. It’s been so long since the last one, and it feels like we’ve been waiting an eternity for it. So it did feel a bit surreal finally holding the CD in our hands yesterday morning. And the fantastic news is…………
……….listening to it felt even better!
Poor September – expectations of her are quite huge from her fans, and there’s a lot of pressure for this album to be great. We absolutely love it though, and we don’t think any September fan will be disappointed. Whether your favourite era was ‘In Orbit’, ‘Dancing Shoes’, the first album, or indeed you only became a fan in light of ‘Mikrofonkåt’ recently, we think there’s something on this album to appeal to all September fans. But at the same time, whilst definitely catering to all of those people, we don’t think it in any way sounds like a disjointed mess. Far from it. It’s a clear and cohesive exercise in catchy, ballsy, dance pop. The best kind!
There are two remarkable things about ‘Love CPR’.
Firstly, we couldn’t pick a favourite, as there are just too many highlights that we think are beyond amazing. We picked four favourites (‘Heat Rising’, ‘Hands Up’, ‘My Emergency’, and ‘Walk Alone’), closely followed by two more (‘Something’s Going On’, and ‘Bump And Grind’). And even then, that’s without counting the fantastic singles too, ‘Resuscitate Me’ and ‘Mikrofonkåt’/’Me & My Microphone’. That’s a hell of a lot of highlights for one album!
Secondly, we don’t think there’s anything on here that could be described as filler. Although with so many highlights, the songs that are just very good rather than amazing, do seem to get a bit lost during the first few listens. But we do still think that those songs actually are very good, and will come into their own a little bit on future listens, once the euphoria of the bigger tracks has died down a tad. Also, there’s no period of the album that lulls in any way (for example, we hate it when you get to track 10 on a particular album, and you’re willing it to just end!). It’s constantly on a high, with the best tracks all spread out evenly throughout.
Finally, one thing we were initially concerned about after the success of ‘Mikrofonkåt’ and Så Mycket Bättre, was that these new tracks would be pushed harder, and be favoured over the original ‘Love CPR’ which had been intended before Så Mycket Bättre became the huge success it did. Thankfully though, that’s not the case. The original September album hasn’t been compromised in any way to accommodate Så Mycket Bättre September. The album is clearly labeled as having fourteen tracks, with the Så Mycket Bättre songs and Petter collaboration labeled as bonus tracks, fifteen to nineteen.
Right! So, you know how much we love a track by track album review so here it is!
01. Party In My Head
September has often been called the Swedish Kylie. And this is the most Kylie-esque track on here. Think ‘Wow’ or ‘Get Outta My Way’. In fact it’s from the same team that was behind the latter. It’s the last song that she recorded for the album, last December in London. Back then she called it a “smash”, the record label have since told us that it’s a “smash”, and one of the songwriters has twice tweeted that it’s a “smash” too. And to be honest, they’re all right – it’s a SMASH! It might not be one of our favourites that we named above, but it’s definitely one of the more commercial, and universal. Lyrically, it’s one of the best, simply because we love the message; “I don’t care if the whole club is dead, cos the party’s in my head” which runs throughout. Although we’re not going to comment on the line; “I don’t care about the V.I.P., cos every single DJ is inside me“……eeeek! ‘Party In My Head’ is the next single from the album in Sweden.
02. Resuscitate Me
We already went into this in quite some detail before. And we still love it to bits. It’s already a classic September tune in our eyes.
03. Something’s Going On
The first of three songs on the album composed by her old team, Von Der Burgs, Niklas and Jonas, and Anoo Bhagavan. And it’s got the trademark big chorus, where the melody of the synths is deemed just as important as the melody of the vocal topline. Listening to it made us realise just how much we’ve missed these three guys (and September too of course!). This has elements of early ATB (‘9pm Til I Come’, ‘Don’t Stop’) to it, which is at least cohesive, since ATB’s fellow early noughties dance music superstar, Darude, worked with September whilst making this album.
04. Intimate Connection
September goes a tad more electro here. And then goes crazy on a big “La La La” chorus. It’s one of the more fun tracks on the album. Although it does get a bit lost amongst the almightier numbers on here.
05. Heat Rising
Like we said above, definitely one of our big favourites on here. From the first word spoken in the first verse, it’s unrelenting in its total energy. It’s fierce! It’s fantastic! Both melody and production, they’re September in her finest form. This is up there with her absolute best material over the years. And it’s got this great extended outro after the final chorus, where we just hear the instrumental and the vocal harmonies. We love it! It was written by Jaakko Salovaara, better known as JS16 (he’s Finnish and produced the legendary ‘Freestyler’ by Bomfunk MC’s amongst many others), Patric Sarin (Margaret Berger, Darin, Anna Abreu), and September herself, Ms Petra Marklund.
06. Walk Away
The album’s first and only ballad (not counting the Så Mycket Bättre bonus tracks). It’s good, but to our ears it’s totally stifled by being surrounded by all these big club pop tunes. Although to other people, that factor might make this stand out as one of their favourites.
07. Ricochet
This is a different kind of dance music to everything else on here. More electro rock. And it’s got another one of those mad choruses, this one going ”Oooh-la-di-da-da”. Like the previous song ‘Walk Away’, this was by Christian Fast, September, and the Thott gents, Didrik and Sebastian. It’s not one of our favourites, but we do think that it’ll be one of the highlights of many other people, if that makes sense! It just has that popular sound to it.
08. Hands Up
This, on the other hand, IS one of our favourites. Didrik Thott back to his usual amazing self, along with Christian Fast, Niklas Bergwall, and September herself. From the opening bars, you hear an immensely massive piece of dance tunage. It’s perhaps the album’s standout club anthem, in that it’s a pure dance track that we think would be universally popular, on the dancefloor, on radio, and in stereo. And it’s got this genius post-chorus section that we love, where it all goes a bit mental for a bit…………………….
09. Me & My Microphone
………bringing us perfectly to this! You all know this very well by now. And rightly so. We love how they’ve put album’s two clubbiest tracks right in the centre of the album, to avoid any lull in preceedings, rather than at the start like most would.
10. Music
September comes over all robot on us, on a dreamy, yet still very upbeat dance track. It’s a nice addition to the album, albeit not a stand-out one. And it offers ‘Love CPR’ something different too.
11. My Emergency
Another of the album’s highlights, this is superb. And from the same team that were behind ‘Heat Rising’ back on track 5, which you can tell straight away after listening to both. September darlingheart, please work with Patric and Jaakko again! They give her a sound that is unique, and it’s a September sound that we reckon could, on future albums, be on a par with the Jonas/Niklas/Anoo sound that has worked so well for her before, and that works so well on this album too. This is already classic September, we feel. Everything about it is BIG. And the chorus is super powerful.
12. Walk Alone
And here we have yet another song that thrills us to our very core, and another which is right up there with the likes of ‘Cry For You’ in terms of quality. This time, the team behind it, are the same team that were behind ‘Cry For You’ – Jonas and Niklas Von Der Burg, and Anoo Bhagavan. It’s got the same sort of synths, heartwrenching melody in the chorus, and a beautiful piano throughout. It’s quite ‘End Of The Rainbow’ too. It’s brilliant stuff. So much so, that we were disappointed with the abrupt ending it has. It’s less than three minutes long! An extended outro on this would have been spectacular. If it’s a future single, we’ll probably implode with glee when we hear the extended version!
13. White Flag
One of the more experimental tracks on here, and it does pay off, even though it’s not one of our highlights. It’s got an intrusively loud and lairy chorus. And it contains our favourite lyric of the album in its refrain – “I liked you better before I loved you“. That’s a little bit of genius right there.
14. Bump and Grind
Back to Jonas, Niklas, and Anoo, and thus back to one of the album’s best moments. This doesn’t sound like anything that the three guys have done for September before. It’s very modern day dance, sort of like if ‘In Orbit’ era September meets current era Rihanna. And it’s got possibly the album’s catchiest chorus. We would LOVE to hear this in a club, we’d file it alongside ‘Me & My Microphone’ and ‘Hands Up’ as one of the album’s pure club anthems.
Bonus Tracks (her collaboration with Petter, and the Så Mycket Bättre songs)
15. Baksmälla (feat. Petter)
16. Kärlekens tunga
17. Mikrofonkåt
18. Vem ska jag tro på
19. Teddybjörnen Fredriksson (and we’d like to point out that ‘Teddybjörnen Fredriksson’ is a beautiful moment, and a perfect closing song for the album)
Welcome back, September. We’d missed you so so much!
‘Love CPR’ is released in Scandinavia on February 16th.
And while you’re waiting to get all in a tizzy over her new album, check out our countdown of our top 10 September tracks up until now (compiled before we heard ‘Love CPR’ of course), which we posted over the weekend.
