by Shilpa Saravanan, editor-in-chief
German electro-folk-pop duo Milky Chance, architects of the infectious “Stolen Dance” that’s presently inching up the charts, released their debut album “Sadnecessary” in the U.S. on Oct. 14.
The portmanteau of the album’s title says all there is to say about the album itself: no song comes close to feeling happy, but each one plods along nonetheless, as though it must. “Sadnecessary” is a sad album, but it’s not depressing. In fact, it might make you want to dance — the instrumental bits on “Feathery” and “Sweet Sun” especially are both catchy and akin to what’s on pop radio at any given time. “Stunner” and “Down By The River” take more listening to get used to (“Stunner,” incidentally, is also the opening track — but it’s a poor introduction to the album. Hold off on making premature judgments until the second track, “Flashed Junk Mind.”)
The title track is, appropriately, the centerpiece of “Sadnecessary.” Singer Clemens Rehbein’s voice, while never particularly dynamic, is especially flat here — but it somehow works, if only because Rehbein’s monotone, pushing forward for five minutes, so fits all that the word “sadnecessary” seems to embody. The album picks back up, though, and Rehbein is at his most variable in “Stolen Dance” — which, though the crowning jewel of the whole collection, is cleverly hidden at the end of the album, leaving the listener with the never-ending refrain stuck in their head for the rest of the day.
Milky Chance’s minimalist aesthetic is not so different from the — well, minimalist aesthetics (more hipster buzzwords have never been used) — of other coffeehouse acts. The relatively few lyrics say little that hasn’t been said before: along those lines, how many times have audiences been told that they’ve “never danced like this before?” But “Sadnecessary,” though containing nothing new, manages to completely avoid sounding like a rehash — and that, considering its overcrowded genre, is saying something.
Stream “Sadnecessary” in its entirety on Spotify, or purchase the album on Amazon.
