Tim: New boyband off the north of Norway, nice and deep inside the Arctic circle; presumably that’s where the name comes from. Here’s their opening number.
Tim: Pretty good, right?
Tom: I was going to say “meh” until that quiet pre-chorus; that actually made me sit up and listen.
Tim: They are Helge, Bilal, Håkon, Sebastian and Vegard, and pleasingly they all seem fairly competent, always a bonus. One of them’s already been described as ‘the Zayn of the group’, which feels a bit like tempting fate to me but there you go, it’s done now.
Tom: See, that just means “first to leave” to me, but never mind.
Tim: Well, indeed. Whatever happens in the future, though, we can only judge them right now on the material they put out, and so far it’s looking promising – melody, instrumentation, production, vocals, all the necessary bits are there.
Tom: And yet, that’s not unqualified praise from either of us. When the best part is the quiet pre-chorus, I can’t give it anything more than what you said earlier: COMPETENT.
Tim: I’m not sure I’d personally choose to put this forth as a lead track to hold an album up, so hopefully there’s something a little better or more special to come later, but I’ll take it for now.