[Album Review] Declaration of Dependence — Kings of Convenience
Declaration of Dependence is the anthem album for a cold break-up, housing few of Kings of Convenience’ aural greats like Me In You, Boat Behind, Mrs. Cold, Renegade, etc. However, the true taste of an evolving Kings of Convenience are in tracks like My Ship Isn’t Pretty, Freedom and It’s Owner and Riot In An Empty Street. In 5 years between 2004 and 2009, the band explored different ways of arranging their songs and the album is a testament of that change. The album is packed with sophisticated lyrics, somber guitar lines and extraordinary vocal harmonies, which is quite quintessentially KOC but the band definitely explored different shades of meandering vulnerability throughout the 45 minute record.
—
Off the bat, the album does not appear to be a concept-album. Each song seems to have their own matured story of love, carefully brushing on the personality of the two men from Bergen. The album opens with 24-25, and instantly we are greeted with a breath of fresh air, as if the band chose to open up a more vulnerable side to their music — quieter, somber, lesser on the arrogance and more on the story that is about to unfold. Kings of Convenience lyrics has always appeared to be more mature than their counterparts, never shying away from dabbling with metaphors. While 24-25 might not easily become the warm quilt you desire when the bombs are falling, but it will promise to not leave your side.
“Hey baby, Mrs. Cold
Acting so tough
Didn’t know you had it in you to be so hurt at all
You waited too long
You should have hooked me
before I put my raincoat on”
— Mrs. Cold, Kings of Convenience
The top half of the album, following 24-25, is indicative of a partner taking the high road in a relationship. For instance, I remember discussing with a friend how the theme of Mrs. Cold embodies a bona fide male chauvinist. If the aforementioned quote suggests anything, the quiet duo seems to be assuming a high ground in a relationship by losing interest in controlling the others’ tantrums in the affair, and has chosen to step out of it. However, it took me quite a bit of research to understand what is happening in the album.
In an interview, Erlend Oye claims that Kings of Convenience have gotten into a habit of not writing about their lives. The singer claims that their lives are quite boring, but more importantly, private affairs that are not fashionable to be put into the albums. While there might be some strands here and there, the songs largely do not represent the lives of the singers. So, as the album progresses through songs like Me In You and Boat Behind, it accrues grievances. Each song captures a different flavor of grievance and dissects the emotion quite well, until the album reaches a tipping point at My Ship Isn’t Pretty.
“It undulates on the waves
And cautions the water so we can be safe”
—My Ship Isn’t Pretty, Kings of Convenience
I think the album starts to unfold better from My Ship Isn’t Pretty. It’s not because it is just at the middle of the album, but the arrangements of the songs that follow also starts to change — songs become more intimate, almost loses the orchestral soundscape to make a larger room for the two guitars and a piano, explores a lot of Nick Drake-like melodies and speaks a story of falling apart from love while being guilty for feeling this way. One of the reasons why we think this album appears as cold, intimate and an antithesis of a roller-coaster, is because the duo starts to — and successfully does — encapsulate a rare feeling.
The bottom half of the album, except Peacetime Resistance, seems to be a critical reflection of a person in love but increasingly losing reasons to be in love. Before and after this album was released in 2009, artistic work on explosive break-ups, toxicity and moving-on has been aplenty. Declaration of Dependence introduces the complexity of love and loving commitments, in that one does not need someone new to stare into the sunset with to lose out on the will to save an already-sinking ship they are in. While this sentiment is ever-so-familiar to many of us, it still remains largely unexplored in music because fall-outs have traditionally been painted by the broad brush of losing love and seldom acknowledging the intricacies in a loving loss, where the guilt of not being affectionate out of sheer habit steers the boat. Perhaps, that is what makes Kings of Convenience an intellectual affair to be associated with.
“When thoughts
Had outnumbered spoken words
In the early hours
We failed to establish
Who was hurt
Most”
—Renegade, Kings of Convenience
Following My Ship Isn’t Pretty is Renegade, which explains the anxiety that comes with a break-up and bad fights. You instantly feel a drastic change in the tone of the lyrics, and the message it tries to convey. As the name suggests, the song appropriately describes quiet protest not only from the actor described in the song, but from the writer as well. I feel the duo uses Renegade to contribute to the character of love that they have been trying to paint, in that love is never one sided; that even a fight involves two people with immeasurable hurt.
Freedom And Its’ Owner, quite uniquely, paints a picture of being happy with an engagement but freedom still appears to be a better option, as Eirik writes, “No view is wider than the eye”. When you hear both Renegade and Freedom And It’s Owner, you will instantly associate the voices to Erlend and Eirik, but the album introduces a lush yet simple soundscape which explores multiple custom guitar tunings and a vast range of vocal harmonies, as opposed to a fixed range of harmonies (or so it sounded to me!) that arranged their previous album Riot In An Empty Street. Ironically, this album also has a song called Riot In An Empty Street which gives the album a lot of coherence in its’ character. The song speaks of the impending falling apart and a self-reflection where the writer describes inching closer to giving up the charade. It is as if there is chaos in an apparently empty space, giving a lot of character to the recognition that breaking up and losing out on love isn’t always about two people bickering and an explosion, since the dangerous game can still explode if the gas keeps leaking. The album ends with Scars on Land, and I will leave this discussion with the chorus from the song, “No chain stays unbroken, all aims get forgotten.”
—
“And I’m watching you now
I see you building the castle with one hand
while tearing down another with the other”
— — Me In You, Kings of Convenience
Kings of Convenience is a very quiet band. In one of the more interesting interviews of the band during their tour to Russia, Eirik spoke about how they make music to complement silence. In doing so, they appreciate that their fans are quiet at their concerts and listen to the music, instead of being loud and rowdy. To accompany that philosophy, the band has surely done a fantastic job with Declaration of Dependence. The band takes a right turn from the upbeat character and redefines themselves as an act that focuses a lot on storytelling in their songwriting. Subjectively speaking, it seems right when a set of songs about love, loss, defeatism and complexity does not include a crescendo to differentiate the “calm” and the “storm, which makes this album uniquely refreshing!