Kings of Convenience
Declaration of Dependence
(Astralwerks, 2009)

We are often told, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” While the idiom occasionally rings true in our closest relationships, in most cases, absence simply makes the heart forget. One field this platitude undoubtedly doesn’t apply to is modern music. In a world driven by instant gratification, artists who find success are expected to flood the market with new, fresh material to feed the insatiable masses. Since most great art takes time, an abundance of lackluster, hurried follow-ups come from those artists who simply needed more than a year or two to craft the response that their previous work deserved.

One group that’s eschewed the creative arms race is Norway’s Kings of Convenience. After their critically acclaimed second album Quiet Is the New Loud in 2001, the duo—made up of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe—released 2004’s Riot on an Empty Street. The album showcased the band’s graceful twin-vocal harmonies and subtly gorgeous acoustic accompaniments, gaining them worldwide acclaim. After playing packed theaters around the world, the group mostly dropped out of the spotlight in 2006. Øye released two albums with dance-poppers the Whitest Boy Alive, and Bøe focused on a new, similarly upbeat band called Kommode.

While many doubted their future, the Kings are back with Declaration of Dependence. Written sporadically over the last five years and recorded over the last two, the duo successfully shakes off the rust to complete a new collection of 13 songs that live up to their stellar catalog.

The album’s wistful opener, “24-25”, quickly dispels any anxieties that KoC fans may have harbored in regards to the long layoff. Like much of their best work, it is built around an emotive vocal harmony and an open, arpeggiated guitar melody. Bøe’s nylon-stringed classical guitar provides a graceful base for Øye’s tasteful, steel-string melody line. Their signature guitar interplay continues on the next track, “Mrs. Cold.” The jazzy single reminds us of the duo’s playful side, as Øye sings about a relationship with an emotionally reserved lover. They have always been able to effectively blend in upbeat, effervescent tunes with their pensive, placid numbers, and this serves in keeping their albums fresh and surprisingly multifarious. While this, their first percussion-less effort, contains fewer of such songs—especially on the second half of the disc, which features only slow, quiet numbers—it does not drag, as the downtempo songs are among the strongest of their career.

One of those songs, “Freedom and Its Owner”, captures the essence of their songwriting acumen. After a beautiful finger-picked guitar passage, Bøe’s assured tenor leads us on an evocative journey that is impossible not to get swept away by. “We’ll be rich in memories of all the places we’ve captured with our camera… / We’ve skied the mountains and swum in the rivers, and let the sunlight dry our skin,” he sings. While the song begins as a nostalgic exercise, it develops into a thought-provoking piece focused on how freedom is subjective and inexorably connected to each individual’s distinct worldview. Øye and Bøe have always had a knack for writing outwardly personal lyrics with insightful takes on overarching themes (see: “I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From”, “Misread”), and this disc features the most developed prose of their career as they touch on politics, love affairs, and, of course, their own friendship.

I had my worries that diverse side projects might erode the seamless partnership that is essential to Kings of Convenience’s sound, but Declaration of Dependence put those fears to bed. Øye and Bøe seem to have needed the break to explore new sounds and other creative avenues, but now that they’ve reunited, like so many of our lasting, closest relationships, they were able to pick up right where they left off.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]