About

Since emerging on the scene, Øye has led somewhat of a double life. He has played frontman to a number of outfits. His band Kings of Convenience helped pioneer the new acoustic movement in 2001, delivering a debut full of delicate, whispery folk. His other artistic persona indulges the MC inside him as the singer to the minimalistic dance-pop band the Whitest Boy Alive. The band’s 2002 debut, Dreams, contained lyrics of relationships and heartache set to smooth electronic beats, creating a chilly atmosphere of winter crispness. The album maintained that delicate wistfulness and melancholy unique to Øye. This year’s Rules is more inclined toward old-school lounge jazz than its predecessor, with cool, understated jams mixed with modern European electronics. As can be expected, each element of the sound has been applied with obsessive meticulousness, creating melodies both unfailingly polite and slyly innovative.

Rules moves smoothly from one track to the next. Sometimes it does all feel a little too formulaic, a little too rational. It’s as if Øye and his band are someone coolly assessing heartache and love from a distance and one wants Øye and the music to just loosen up and reveal something rawer. But as Øye states on “Promise Less Or Do More”, “No need to fight about it / No need to shout about it”, and while we may want him to lose it for a moment, he has a point. There’s something oddly refreshing about refrain in an indie world which is often too full of bloated, wounded emotion. - Pop Matters