Basshunter – Northern Light

I swear he looks more like David Hasselhoff every time he releases a video.

Tim: Basshunter’s fourth album has been on its way ever since the first single from it, the not-very-Basshunter-sounding Saturday, got a lukewarm reception from his fans almost two years ago. This is the second single from it, and it’s a bit more Basshunter-y. He’s even brought back that storyline he had going on in the videos. Because that was what people were missing.

Tom: I swear he looks more like David Hasselhoff every time he releases a video. That’s not a compliment.

Tim: It really isn’t, but it’s also not inaccurate.

Tom: “I will keep my magic sparkle bright?” Also, damn it, it’s Northern Lights. Plural.

Tim: So far, so back to proper Basshunter.

Tom: Somehow I was expecting more. His name’s “Basshunter”, for crying out loud: would it kill him to actually have some BANGING BASS in there instead of the generic dance beat we’ve got here?

Tim: Oh, come on – he hasn’t had BANGING BASS ever since he went mainstream four years back, has he? No, this is the stuff most people are used to, or at least it is until whatever this ‘let’s take a break and do something different’ is? I mean come on, no one wants it, it sticks out horribly, and it interrupts what is otherwise bog-standard excellent Basshunter fare. Yes, the song was coming to the point where it needed to go somewhere else, but you could at least cut it into halves and spread it out a bit, so it might sound a tad more integrated and flowing, no?

Tom: I think it’s just a long middle-eight – more like a middle-sixteen – but it doesn’t sound like him. Mind you, he’s been going for nearly a decade now.

Tim: More, actually, although I must confess I’d never heard of that album until now.

Interlude aside, though, this song is a great and much-awaited return to form, I think.

Tom: I think he’s still got a way to go.