What began as a pile of homemade demo recordings by singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Elisabeth Mortvedt, now appears as a gilded whole. In co-operation with the duo’s other half, musician and producer Nikolai Hængsle Eilertsen, Band of Gold is an album crammed with ambitious pop music...

Band of Gold is an enjoyable album, although, I have to admit that on the first listen through I found it a little twee and bordering on pop folk music.

Subsequent listens saw me warm to the songs. In fact I couldn't help but think that this is how ABBA would sound today if they were writing new and interesting songs.

The album contains 9 songs (43 min, 46 sec) with it being hard to pick out any favourites, but if I were pressed, I'd have to go for the songs which are more traditional and stand out as being single material. 'Wishes'; 'The Parade'; 'Surface Me'; and 'For You'.

7

Nick Smithson