Metamorfózy – Decasia

Imagine a slo-mo flight across a snowy subarctic landscape, the sort of thing you’d see on a high-tech BBC nature documentary. Now imagine the sort of music that might accompany it – haughty Scandinavian atmospherics, melodramatic strings, synth-assisted classical epics. This album by Metamorfózy, aka Norwegian duo Rune Lindbaek and Oyvind Blikstad, is pure soundtrack – although without the visuals of rutting reindeer and fir-clad peaks to look at, the music is a bit unsatisfying, unengaging.

Themes from the last few years of Scandic electronica drift to the surface in varying shades – the widescreen symphonies of Röyksopp, the whispery, endearingly accented vocals of Erlend Oye, the metronomic disko of Lindstrom – but hooks are too few and the overall feel is one of waiting for something to happen. As shown by Daft Punk recently, a soundtrack can stand on its own as a work of art, but Decasia lacks the energy to be heard without being seen. [Euan Ferguson]