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| 14 June 2005 |
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| Stock boring third record - Review by Asbjørn Slettemark |
| Source : Bergens Tidende |
She has become pop star, broken down, disappeared from the public, come back, and is surprisingly ready with her third album.
None of Lene Marlin's albums are particularly legendary in pure musical terms, but with 'Unforgivable Sinner' and 'Sitting Down Here', she cemented herself into Norwegian pop history as an extremely promising songwriter.
About as when the enthusiastic Dagbladet elected 17-year-old Tommy Svindal Larsen as 'God's gift to football', it may unfortunately seem like the expectations became a bit artificially high.
'Lost In A Moment' is starting out in the worst way possible, that is, after one has turned the pages of the poorest album cover Norwegian record buyers have seen since Span and Maria Haukaas Storeng attacked the senses earlier this year. Lene Marlin is humming carefully over a classical guitar on 'My Lucky Day', before an ugly wall of fuzz guitars (I really didn't think this existed!) make the important opening track sounding like a karaoke version of energetically Avril Lavigne. Not pretty, and mildly put a horrible start for an album that first is going up when the useful single 'How Would It Be' is reminding of why Norwegian radio stations still embrace the Tromsø girl. From here on, it is possible to say much and many things about both the lyrics and music, but everything is boiling down to a simple, naive, but inevitable argument. 'Lost In A Moment' is a stock boring record.
Everything isn't Marlin's own fault. While beforementioned 'How Would It Be' and 'Leave My Mind' have melodies with potential and spark, the 'star producers' Stargate is contributing to putting Marlin in the front seat of a dusty gravelly road of weak production, bad ideas, and general mediocrity. While Norwegian artists like Madruguda, Turbo Negro, Paperboys, and Jim Stärk with success are taking grip of their own identity and career, Lene Marlin let her's be ruined by overpayed producers. My single advice to the still young Marlin originates from the rapper Rakims 1989 classic 'Microphone Fiend': 'Back to the lab again', because this doesn't cut it.
Translated by Tef Johs
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