Amanda Bergman – ‘Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever’ album review: a stunning return
THE SKINNY: Amanda Bergman has a voice that could haunt an empty house. On Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever, the Swedish musician’s first solo offering in eight years, she lends that husky timbre to an excision of life. True to the circumstances that spawned it, Bergman’s latest offering is earnestly lived-in. The songs simply spill out of her. By day, she is actually a farmer, but at night, she seemingly makes sense of her world from a piano stool.
It just so happens that she’s a farmer who knows her way around the perfect pop hook. This lends the humble tracks an utterly unique feel. They are diary entries that masquerade as hits, or perhaps vice versa. But every ounce of these stirring ditties is sincere. It is art’s age-old aberration of reality that significant junctures align with a singular manner of thought. This is not true. We are never so caught within a single moment that all other feelings and potentialities are isolated.
It takes an artist as natural and impartial as anything other than the art and feeling at hand to capture that. Bergman does this in such a stunning way that you’re almost bewildered because it is so foreign to have such depth paired with melodies as straightforwardly catchy as these. She sings of grief with joy, fittingly capturing the fact that grief is a spectrum rather than a noun. She sings of love and devotion with conflicting intricacies, conjuring superb lines like, “I love him til I love him right.”
In process, she weaves together little vignettes of life—ones that are produced and textured in such a way that the catchiness and attitude that adorn them never feel out of place or anything other than natural. Synths set an ambience for the songwriting, while clever, melodic instrumentation gives her poetry an effortless groove. However, her voice, essentially, takes centre stage, always cutting above the mix, bewitchingly beaming with all the soulful assurance that a lighthouse gives a sailor.
For fans of: Chic, humble upright pianos with coffee mug ring-stains on the lid.
A concluding comment from the ghost of Lou Reed: “I dunno, I’ve always just found the intricacies of urban living a little more gripping than the pastoral, rural equivalent.”
Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever track by track:
Release date: 7th June | Producer: Amanda Bergman & Petter Winnberg | Label: CowCow / RedEye
‘Wild Geese, Wild Love’: The most obvious single from the record welcomes you with a smattering of all the elements that will eventually unfold. Thusly, it’s a perfectly placed track, and not far from a perfect track in general. It is not just sung but performed, and there’s a sense of exultancy woven into the half notes. [4.5/5]
‘I Love Him Til I Love Him Right’: One of the finest song titles you’re ever likely to read. You could drop a bomb into the titular lyric alone and never live to hear it explode. That complex domestic depth is served up on a hook that renders the intricacies of romance catchy. [5/5]
‘Day 2000 Awake’: Bergman’s press release aptly described her as “a sober Stevie Nicks” and nowhere is that more apparent than this measured piece of pop-adjacent perfection. Hooks are almost carelessly strewn amid the twinkling and textured backdrop. [4/5]
‘Poor Symmetry’: Compositionally highly off-kilter. In fact, if you musicologically dissect this ballad, you’ll find that, if it’s anything, it’s jazz. Odd chord progressions make for an interesting, albeit jarring, listen. Alas, Bergman’s eternally listenable smooths out the unique contours into something palatable, even if the melody is too busy to let the lyrics really sink in. [3.5/5]
‘My Hands In the Water’: A pulsing beat is indicative of her time in Amason. With the confidence of a musician who has mastered their craft, Bergman allows for the track to gently build, creating tension, while offering sweet rewards along the way. [4/5]
‘Offset Island’: Plaintive, meditative and heartening, ‘Offset Island’ is as close as music can get to conjuring the feeling of gazing across a glinting body of water. Or at least it is in the verses; the chorus breaks that indulgent reverie in the best possible way—pulling you out and plunging you into deep introspection. [4.5/5]
‘The World is Tired of You’: Jazzy horns create a sanguine atmosphere and a point of difference on the record in a style akin to Beirut-inspired indie nostalgia. The warm and hushed tones created are a mark of a stunning piece of production. It sounds like a random midweek day off and you’ve scored for some sun. [4/5]
‘Sign Of a Past Life’: A steady rhythm section – ‘steady’ might’ve been replaced with monotonous if Bergman’s inventive topline melody didn’t waltz over it beautifully – injects a burst of pace into the record as pop is embraced. It’s a ditty underscored by depth, and delivered with a smile. [4.5/5]
‘Thought I Didn’t Wake You Up’: An angelic orchestral swell marks the beginning of the end of a stunning album suddenly assured of its own humble profundity. With gorgeous crooning vocals, Bergman offers up a reflection of life in the most earnest regard. This soaring farewell, proves you don’t have to be sharp to cu=t straight to the heart. [5/5]
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