The Guardian review
They stand side by side with their acoustic guitars, lost in their folky songs of sweetness and light, but still looking to entertain. Toxic Girl is a vignette of vanity, but not scathing - bitterness isn't allowed to taint the gentle harmonies. While Glambek Boe sings: "She's intoxicated by herself/Every day, she's seeing someone else," he's doing it with a sparkle in his eyes.
It's the sense of fun behind their heart-melting gems that makes Kings of Convenience so endearing. There's no cleverness or earnest melancholia here - well, you can't be solemnwhen you're covering an A-ha song. But that doesn't mean they play the Norwegian teen-idols' Manhattan Skyline for laughs. In fact they take the overblown epic and give it a majesty that would stun Morten and co.
Make
no mistake, Glambek Boe and Oye are mouth-wateringly sweet. Wrapped in
his zip-up cardigan, Glambek Boe is a latter-day Val Doonican. Oye, on
the other hand, is a star in the gangly, bespectacled sense. He's
unsure without his guitar and makes up for his awkwardness by doing odd
little dances that make everyone laugh. Stepping off the stage, still
singing, he bursts into a spot of dancing, staring at the floor like
the geekiest boy in class who has been asked to dance with the girl of
his dreams. It's always the quiet ones you always have to watch.
Kings Of Convenience
London Islington Union Chapel
Two nerdy boys and their acoustic guitars? Rock'n'roll, let's go! OK, so when softly-spoken Norwegians Eirik Glambek Boe and Erlend Oye launch into the honeysuckle harmonies and rippling arpeggios of 'Until You Understand', it's Simon & Garfunkel and The Everly Brothers who spring to mind. Not to mention, sitting by the fire, jumpers and toast.
Yet, cuddly and safe as this sound is, you'd be a fool to dismiss Kings Of Convenience as mere folky throwbacks. With arrangements this stripped-down, they live or die by their melodies, and the jazzy, Nick Drake air of 'Sing Softly To Me' and the baroque-folk of 'Toxic Girl' provide vindication. There's nothing extraneous here, no wavering vocal inflection, no finger-picked string stumbled over: every note is hauntingly perfect.
In fact, this performance is so fragile and vulnerable that watching becomes almost an act of voyeurism: their hearts are bursting, but you can't turn away. Even their version of A-ha's 'Manhattan Skyline' is achingly melancholic.
Light relief appears in the form of bespectacled Erlend indulging in a bit of, er, disco dancing during 'Night Life', a wonderfully straight-faced exegesis on the problems of chatting someone up in a club. It's impossible to imagine these two on a podium down Fabric, but that doesn't mean they're out of touch.
Christian Ward