Oh Land: Wish Bone – review

Nanna Oland Fabricius once dreamed of being a ballet dancer, only to have her aspirations curtailed by injury. So instead she opted for the no less competitive discipline of left-field Scandinavian pop music, and this second album sees her making a decent fist of it. Produced by TV On the Radio's Dave Sitek, who has also signed Oh Land to his label, it has the well-reduced sonic stock you might expect, with no element ever crowded out. Musical styles range broadly, from the predictably Robynesque (the excellent My Boxer), to a more straightforward pop (Cherry on Top) and heart-smooshing acoustic balladeering (Love You Better). It's a smorgasbord of styles, which sometimes gives the sense of straining for a hit, yet all of it is held together by Fabricius's distinctive lyrics, which have an ear for the oddball. Cherry on Top, for example, is a plea to a lover about the pitfalls of excess that's filled with figurative imagery such as champagne raining on windowpanes. It opens, however, with the sublimely literal line, "Small boy, big teeth/ Going in for a bite". There are enough distinctive observations and neat turns of phrase to mark Oh Land as a peculiar part of the corps de pop.