After a 12-year hiatus from recording and releasing new music, the widely-acclaimed Norweigen music dynamic duo, has dropped a new album, Love or Peace.
The 12-track recording, long-anticipated, does not disappoint. Love or Peace offers a well-balanced and superbly-produced mix of the familiar and of the new.
If you are a KOC fan, you’re probably going to dig Love or Peace.
With the new album receiving widespread accolades, KOC has reinforced its position as one of the greatest musical exports from Norway in decades. We are sure glad Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye decided to pursue music and create the terrific acoustic sound and soothing voices that have become KOC’s signature.
Reviews of Love or Peace from around the webs:
Songwriting this unadorned requires melodic strength and confidence, but the pair never waver from their acoustic guitars and occasional violin. “Fever” is the only song with a drumbeat; “Catholic Country” – featuring Feist, and one of KOC’s best ever songs – and others play up the percussive quality of their stringed instruments to add urgency and even a little funk.
Bøe and Øye’s paired, timbrally similar voices remain a key part of the charm. Delicacy and care are given to both boyish and adult vocal pitches, perfectly expressing innocence and experience at once. There are moments of straightforward breakup glumness, but the complexity of love and desire comes through on songs such as “Rocky Trail” and “Killers.” [truncated] (U.K. Guardian)
Uncut
Jun 17, 2021
90
Peace Or Love is their most cohesive album yet. While it’s not a world away from their previous work, the mood is noticeably more stripped-down and melancholic. … Kings Of Convenience seem to have discovered the purest essence of the music they create. [Aug 2021, p.26]
musicOMH.com
Jun 18, 2021
80
No alarms, no surprises (unless you count a few surprising moves into bossa nova), but it does make for a lovely listen.
Slant Magazine
Jun 17, 2021
70
Informed by years of experience, growth, and collaboration, Kings of Convenience extend a comforting hand through the warm calm of their music.
Exclaim
Jun 18, 2021
70
Though eschewing the (mild, but still present) domestic theatrics of their earlier works for more wizened fare may have muted their immediate impact, their knack for immersive melodies and grooves keep things compelling.
Pitchfork
Jun 17, 2021
67
The follow-up to 2009’s Declaration of Dependence, makes languid, pleasant pop seem deceptively effortless; the album is so smooth that its seams are barely visible. The record’s 11 tracks are a Quaalude dream, a set of gossamer songs so refined that they take on sedative properties.
All this publication’s reviewsRead full review
