Alcoholic Faith Mission

This Brooklyn band seem as interested in the accidental creaks that sliding fingers make between forming guitar chords as the chords themselves, and presumably also delight in the moments when the signal from a mercilessly punished musical instrument goes into the red.

But the tunes are strong and hymnal, with echoes of Arcade Fire and Califone, and the album's one would-be hit, "Got Love? Got Shellfish!" has a thrilling Bowie-esque chorus. Sombre yet still life-affirming. - The Independent (UK)

My first exposure to Alcoholic Faith Mission was quite pleasant, but, with the exception of a few tracks, it was not an enduring experience. Still, I knew there was something there, a delicate concept that had not fully formed on "421 Wythe Avenue". In my review I compared the group to acts such as Broken Social Scene and fellow Danes Slaraffenland, whose "Private cinema", while a far more ethereal work, is a kindred spirit of Alcoholic Faith Mission's gentle, yet driven take on pop music. I also noted that "There is a tragic beauty here, one that blends the emotional registers of Mixtapes & Cellmates and Moonbabies, yet remains quite distinctively an original construct, and it is this ingenuity that sets Alcoholic Faith Mission apart from many of their contemporaries." All of this remains true on "Let this be the last night we care", but the promising intimations are now fully realized -- while retaining the airy, spacious attributes of "421 Wythe Avenue", there is an anthemic, Arcade Fire-like quality permeating the compositions; for fear of waxing poetic, it is as though the intricate clouds of dust of their previous effort have found a way to manifest themselves in a more concrete fashion. "Let this be the last night we care" is brilliant -- engaging even at its most haunted and distraught moments, such as "Sobriety up and left"; moving even when playful; gorgeously layered and focused, all in the same breath. I have had the distinct pleasure of reviewing a number of very strong albums over the past few weeks, and still Alcoholic Faith Mission's stands out from the crowd. It's rare to stumble upon an album like this, one that is reminiscent enough of other acts as to be somewhat nostalgic and yet remains so markedly unique, capable of reminding us where we've been while concurrently functioning as our soundtrack to the present. - It's A Trap (USA)

Sie stolpern durch den Nebel. In aller Verlorenheit eigensinnig auf der Suche nach irgendetwas Fernem, Unbestimmten. Nach der flüchtigen Schönheit im Chaos der Gefühle, nach einem raren Moment der Klarheit dort, wo es am meisten weh tut. Einfache Antworten wollen Alcoholic Faith Mission auf ihrem dritten Album »LET THIS BE THE LAST NIGHT WE CARE« nicht geben. Bruchstücke sorgsam sammeln, gegen alle Stimmen, die da sagen: »Das passt doch nicht«! Das dänische Quintett rund um die beiden Masterminds Thorben Seierø Jensen und Sune Sølund ist auf bezwingend großäugige Weise renitent. Lässt sich in keine Ecke weisen. Experimentell, aber nicht unzugänglich spinnert. Für die Lo-Fi-Freakfolk-Ecke viel zu intelligent-verspielt und zu dickköpfig- verträumt. Für Grüblerpop viel zu schmerzhaft lebendig. Für Shoegazer viel zu konkret. Die emotionale Tiefe geht bisweilen an die Schmerzgrenze.

Um große Gefühle geht es hier. Um Kreativität im Kollektiv. Ums Improvisieren und Ausprobieren, nicht um Schönklang. Ums bewusst Schräge. Die Kopenhagener spannen alles für sich ein, was den Fluss heruntertreibt und sich zum Ausprobieren eignet.Ein unwiderstehlich trotziges Piano, Klangsamples, Posaunen, Gitarren, Verzerreffekte, Traumfetzen und jede Menge dynamischer Großgruppengefühle. Und die junghexenhaftige Stimme von Sängerin Kristine Permild. Jeder, der schon einmal hoffnungslos verliebt war und weiß, dass alles, alles vergeblich ist, der wird die beiden Songs »Put The Virus In You« und »Sobriety Up And Left« künftig stolz wie Banner vor sich tragen. Das Herz klopft. Alcoholic Faith Mission schaffen widerborstig zärtliche, heftig euphorisierende Musik. - Nordischer Musik (Germany)

Sonne en passant
Ja, ja, dieser Bandname... aber was soll's, denn dahinter verbirgt sich Musik, der man eine Chance geben sollte. Weil sie viel in sich trägt und den bekannten Namen wie Broken Social Scene oder Most Serene Republic in nichts nachsteht.

Mehr zum Thema
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei Tonspion
Alcoholic Faith Mission Homepage
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei motor.de
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei intro.de
Was sich wie ein Verein für rückfällig gewordene Schluckspechte nennt, ist eine dänische Band, die mittlerweile ihr drittes Album an den Start gebracht hat. Als Alcoholic Faith Mission starteten zwei Typen in ihrem versifften Kämmerlein in Kopenhagen ihr musikalisches Projekt. "Misery Loves Company" hieß das Debüt, auf das das im letzten Jahr in Brooklyn produzierte Zweitwerk "421 Wythe Avenue" folgte. Nun, gerade mal ein Jahr später, haben Thorben Seierø Jensen und Sune Sølund ihre Mission erweitert und drei weitere Mitmusizierende in ihren Kreis aufgenommen.

Gemeinsam bringen sie auf „Let This Be The Last Night We Care" Synthesizer, Samples und Streicherfetzen, Posaunen, Gitarren und Chöre auf eine ganz unaufdringliche und dezente Art zusammen. Keiner der zwölf Songs ist trotz seiner Mehrschichtigkeit überladen, keiner dieser Tracks ist trotz seiner Unterspanntheit unspannend. Es fließt hier vor sich hin, schleicht en passant vorbei und hält kurz inne, um dann weiter zum nächsten schönen Moment dieser Entdeckungsreise zu führen. Doch zugegeben, es geht in diesem Indie-Folk-Kommunen-Pop eher schattig bis düster zu. Aber trotz des permanent melancholischen Untertons hat dieses Album etwas Aufbauendes, ja fast Sommerliches in sich. Das sollte man entdecken. - Tonspion (Germany)

Copenhagen, Denmark's Alcoholic Faith Mission began in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006. The story of their origin and band name is one many musicians probably wish they could claim as their own, or at least could've made up on a whim. From a large neon cross in the middle of the street, like an epiphany—or a scene from a Charlie Kaufman movie—was a congregation called Apostolic Faith Mission. Add a clever ironic twist to a deep breath of inspiration and Alcoholic Faith Mission was born.

Let This Be The Last Night We Care (PonyRec) is the Danish band’s third album. It is, I’ll just be blunt about it here, the first album I’ve fallen in love with since I began writing about music. An overwhelming sense of melancholy triggers the beginnings of a smile—from the brilliance of the album title, to each beautiful piece of writing that rises from the band’s unique mix of stacked harmonies and gentle guitar.

Story after story in each song, bits and snippets, flashes of cities and women, bodies and lips. The electro/pop blend allows Mission’s lyrics to be dreamlike, yet at times crude. “You shock me/you fuck me/you wrong me” from “Got Love? Got Shellfish” turns into a whimsical picture of “rain won’t let go/of love’s translucent flow” in “Should’ve Left Before She Woke.”

There is nothing weak about this collection. It’s about urgency, but it is calm. It’s simple, but it is poetic. It’s soothing, but it is very much alive. It does what music is meant to do—which is to tell stories with notes, with instruments, with the image of a candle burning in a dark room. I half-expect to hear this album in Spike Jonze’s next film. Let This Be The Last Night We Care is an example to follow—everything’s connected, everything’s related, but nothing is the same. You won’t be bored, and you’ll beg for more. - Red River Noise (USA)

Alcoholic Faith Mission højner niveauet på smukt tredje udspil

På Alcoholic Faith Missions tredje album spiller den københavnske kvintet på flere tangenter end tidligere. Udtrykket er blevet lidt rigere, de elektroniske elementer er reducerede, og hist og her har de følsomme singer/songwriter-sange fået et skud indie-pop. Det gælder eksempelvis det flotte åbningsnummer put the virus in you og den pragtfulde got love? got shellfish!, der med sit smittende omkvæd måske endda kunne vise sig som et potentielt hit for orkestret. Der er masser at komme efter på Let This Be The Last Night We Care, som byder på et spændende lydunivers og et rigt udbud af fremragende sange, hvoraf flere er ganske rørende. Den hjerteskærende sobriety up and left er helt sikkert et klart højdepunkt – ikke kun på dette album, men for gruppen i det hele taget. Alt i alt har Alcoholic Faith Mission taget et stort skridt i den rigtige retning og begået en smuk og gennemarbejdet plade, der burde sikre bandet en plads i mange seriøse musikelskeres hjerter. Godt gået! - Gaffa (Denmark)

Der findes en særlig form for rock, som folder angst og melankoli ind i et kuldslået, men også storladent udtryk.
Af Jeppe Krogsgaard Christensen
Torsdag den 18. marts 2010, 22:30

I udlandet er Arcade Fire det fremmeste eksempel, og herhjemme gør The Kissaway Trail sig i noget lignende. Og nu melder københavnske Alcoholic Faith Mission sig med deres tredje album, som arbejder i samme lydspor, men på en måde, som aldrig virker fortærsket eller forudsigeligt. »Let This Be The Last Night We Care« er således en ualmindelig stemningsfuld affære, hvor sugende og smukt svungne melodier belægges med guitarer, trommer, bas, tangenter, horn, vokalharmonier og diskret elektronik i en let diset og drømmerisk produktion. Så er man udstyret med et hjerte og et par ører med flair for sværmeri, tristesse og grandeur, ja, så vil disse sange føles som små mirakler. Intet mindre. - Berlingske Tidende (Denmark)

What gets recorded and what a band can get out in a live setting are all too often two different sports. Very occasionally, you can be lucky enough to find a band that can not only achieve studio quality, but surpass it and bring something new and wonderful to the live arena. Tonight was one of those nights.

If you have followed our coverage of Alcoholic Faith Mission's last two albums, you will know that we found something to be quite excited about. In point of fact, we're not alone in that. The new album "Let This Be The Last Night We Care" has been earning glowing reviews everywhere from the blogeratti to the august pages of the Guardian newspaper.

So let's give a tiny bit of back story. The band have been together a little while, growing and metamorphosing from the original duo of Thorben and Sune to reach their present fivesome-ness. From Copenhagen, they have toured extensively in Europe, but this was the first time playing in the UK. Last Tuesday night was the last of four dates. They started at Barfly in Camden on the Saturday. I wasn't there but I gather they experienced some of the usual Saturday night crowd noisiness. They then took themselves to Cardiff for a night and then on to Manchester, where they supported Besnard Lakes at the Dulcimer. And thereby hangs a tale, as trombone player and electronics specialist Gustav managed to leave half his kit in Cardiff. This meant that as soon as they got off stage in Manchester, they had to drive straight back to Cardiff, pick up his missing pedals and then get their asses back to London and Wilmington. Knackered I think is the word, bringing us bang up to tonight's gig

Not really knowing what time anybody was on, I got there about eight, in time to have a beer with a friend and catch the supports. The night was put on by Ant Chalmers who runs the "God Don't Like It" website and shows. Booking acts that are just breaking must be a lot easier to get right in hindsight, so kudos to Ant for getting this on tonight, and his usual unerring eye for quality.

First up was Russell Joslin, who was a more than decent solo singer songwriter with acoustic guitar. That's not entirely accurate, as he started off with banjo but managed to break it just as he was 'getting to the good bit'. Fair do's though, he finished his set playing the most worn out Gibson acoustic jumbo this side of Tennessee. Enjoyable enough to pass the time and maintain interest.

Next on were Deer Park. These were lovely americana, enlivened by lap steel. I really liked these. If it want to risk hate mail, what went through my head was that "the National could sound this good if the National weren't quite so annoying". Best song of their set was 'Running' which contain the excellent line "She said that I attract trouble ... so what does that make you?". The word 'evocative' is what I scribbled on my hand, along with 'epic', for their storytelling, and 'longing' for the emotion. That's what they did for me.

Bizarre moment of the evening happened round about here - I popped out to the loo and saw someone with definite boho flair (and hat and hair) coming in. On my way back into the bar, I could see the same person now wandering out of the door. Apparently it was none other than Adam Ant, asking politely if he could get on stage and do a couple of numbers, which just wasn't going to be possible on tonight's tight bill. Let's hope he comes back, it would be a pity not to see that come to fruition in some way.

By the time Alcoholic Faith Mission got on stage, it was well past 10. Their recorded output is effect heavy, drowned in reverb, textured and layered. From the kit on stage, I anticipated that they were going to reproduce some of this on stage, which gladdened my heart. It did mean though that they were never going to spring up there and jauntily strum straight into it. That's not to say there was any huge delay, but it was all leading to the inevitable pinch point out that dreaded British institution, the 11 o'clock curfew.

The moment they started up, it was clear that they were aiming for the full magic. For a second or two I worried that Kristine's quite girly voice might not carry in here, in what was essentially the back room of a pub. I shouldn't have been concerned. First off, this 'back room' has audio quality to put bigger places to shame. The magic factor though was the energy and emotion that Kristine and Thorben poured into the vocals, and that the rest of the band brought forth too. It almost brought tears of emotion to my eyes and would have won over a queue at a bus stop. As it was, this was no bus queue, this was a fabulously enthusiastic crowd. I don't know who was producing the most whooping and hollering, band or audience. Quite some Danish contingent included, but not to my surprise camp followers, more like people that had picked up on the band at the Barfly four days earlier.


Alcoholic Faith Mission opened with 'Education'. By the time they - Altsounds (UK) - Livereview

The Alcoholic Faith Mission show was one of those shows where afterwards you can’t bring yourself to listen to the studio album for a few days because the live performance was just so powerfully refreshing?and better than any recording could ever hope to be. All five band members (Thorben Seierø, Sune Sølund, Kristine Permild, Laurids Smedegaard, and Gustav Rasmussen) put their entire bodies into the performance, belting out phonemes with exceptionally controlled precision and stomping and shaking tambourines with such purpose that you would think their lives depended on this performance. Maybe in a way they did.

On their album Let This Be the Last Night We Care, the vocals are airy and somewhat shallow, as in Broken Social Scene’s “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl,” but on stage, without the digital alterations, Kristine Permild’s voice sounded so delicately feminine, permeating over the otherwise all male chorus. The band’s euphoric vocal harmony is by far their most impressive asset, with all five members effortlessly lending their voices to the song while still tending to their individual instruments, giving the impression that each song truly is a group effort. The fact that there are five members, all with different instruments and sometimes with more than one also contributed to the band’s fullness and polished sound, helping them avoid the scratchy or unfinished sound that opening bands usually fall victim to.

AFM played a mix of songs from their previous album 421 Wythe Avenue, along with songs from Let This Be the Last Night We Care. This added to the performance’s sincerity and authenticity because it made it clear that they weren’t touring just to promote their new album, despite being a relatively “underground” band. Their aesthetic was also very plain, with the exception of guitarist/ trombonist Gustav Rasmussen who [unintentionally?] looked like a blonde Pee-wee Herman, with his gray suit jacket and sky-blue bowtie.

With such melancholy and somber songs, it’s fortunate that the band was so energetic and had such a positive stage presence, or the show might have left the audience with a sour, emo aftertaste. Everyone on stage had his/her eyes closed while playing “Sobriety Up and Left,” earnestly swearing “I’m sober now, It’s not too late to be with you.”

After playing songs like “Closer to Dallas” and “Education,” AFM ended their set with “Got Love? Got Shellfish!” which involved every band member yelling full-force into their microphones, “You shock me, you fuck me, you wrong me!” Bassist Sune Sølund even moved out of his corner on the stage for this song and walked around the other band members, like his energy had been culminating all night into this one moment. This was the perfect song to end the night with, ensuring that the audience would not forget the performance any time soon, and leaving them in vain cheering for an encore. - Beyond Race Magazine (USA) - Livereview

http://www.ponyrec.dk/release_029.php - All around the world

Sonne en passant
Ja, ja, dieser Bandname... aber was soll's, denn dahinter verbirgt sich Musik, der man eine Chance geben sollte. Weil sie viel in sich trägt und den bekannten Namen wie Broken Social Scene oder Most Serene Republic in nichts nachsteht.

Mehr zum Thema
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei Tonspion
Alcoholic Faith Mission Homepage
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei motor.de
Alcoholic Faith Mission bei intro.de
Was sich wie ein Verein für rückfällig gewordene Schluckspechte nennt, ist eine dänische Band, die mittlerweile ihr drittes Album an den Start gebracht hat. Als Alcoholic Faith Mission starteten zwei Typen in ihrem versifften Kämmerlein in Kopenhagen ihr musikalisches Projekt. "Misery Loves Company" hieß das Debüt, auf das das im letzten Jahr in Brooklyn produzierte Zweitwerk "421 Wythe Avenue" folgte. Nun, gerade mal ein Jahr später, haben Thorben Seierø Jensen und Sune Sølund ihre Mission erweitert und drei weitere Mitmusizierende in ihren Kreis aufgenommen.

Gemeinsam bringen sie auf „Let This Be The Last Night We Care" Synthesizer, Samples und Streicherfetzen, Posaunen, Gitarren und Chöre auf eine ganz unaufdringliche und dezente Art zusammen. Keiner der zwölf Songs ist trotz seiner Mehrschichtigkeit überladen, keiner dieser Tracks ist trotz seiner Unterspanntheit unspannend. Es fließt hier vor sich hin, schleicht en passant vorbei und hält kurz inne, um dann weiter zum nächsten schönen Moment dieser Entdeckungsreise zu führen. Doch zugegeben, es geht in diesem Indie-Folk-Kommunen-Pop eher schattig bis düster zu. Aber trotz des permanent melancholischen Untertons hat dieses Album etwas Aufbauendes, ja fast Sommerliches in sich. Das sollte man entdecken. - Tonspion (Germany)