I wrote way too much about the excellent ‘Giant Giant’. My new years resolution was to write succinct (but hopefully still informative…) reviews on albums, and then hope you would all go and listen for yourself. But I intend to keep my thoughts about Frøkedal and her album ‘Hold on Dreamer’ short anyway, because all I probably need to say is that it is an utterly charming and beautifully written album, and that it should appeal to a wide range of music lovers, irrespective of their taste in music.
On to the tracks themselves and they're a beautiful mix, with a continuity and consistency that gives the album an identity, but with some interesting variances of style, tempo and lyrical content. Highlights includes the wonderful (and probably my favourite track) 'The Man Who isn't Here' with a series of elegant tunes accompanied by the drones of a Violin, whilst 'The Sign' has a quirky tune which i really like. The 'Dream' is delicious, typically it offers us another series of different intertwined melodies, and the use of a sitar guitar adds a character and extra dimension to the songwriting. The high quality songwriting maintained to the end with pre-release single 'Kid' as well as the utterly beautiful 'Demented Times' with the most gorgeous lyrics and thoughtful expressive vocals.
‘Hold on Dreamer’ is folk pop music with style, class and charm. It is a highly enjoyable listen, with it’s main strength lying in the consistent high quality of all the tracks. It has a depth of feeling in its lyrics, but it's never intense to the extent that it feels hard work to listen to. Packed full of good melodies, and well constructed songs, Frøkedal has delivered exactly what we expected - a high quality album which is easy to fall in love with.
Nordic Music Review 8.5 /10