FEVER RAY FEVER RAY ALBUM RABID, BORDER, COOP RELEASE: MARCH 18, 2009 (SWEDEN), MARCH 23, 2009 (REST OF THE WORLD) REVIEW: APRIL 2, 2009

Karin Dreijer Andersson might not be a name that instantly jogs everyone's memory, but if I tell you she makes up one half of the group known as “The Knife”, maybe your attention is a little more pricked. This is the project away from the band's success, and written apparently from within a post-natal haze – should be interesting then!

“If I Had a Heart” opens the set, a rather interesting little number it is too, very dark and droney, yet with something quite warm about it too, a very odd combination of sounds. “When I Grow up”, is quite unsettling – I have to say I really liked it, it was quite simply unnerving, and managed to get my attention like no other track in a long time.

“Triangle Walks” already had me interested from the great title; what followed proved to be probably the best song of the set. The vocals reminded me in some bizarre way of Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries; the music (in part) like early Black Dog. The whole melded together to create a strongly atmospheric, darkly, almost-pop tune. Through the set there is something very interesting evident, the use of vocal for dramatic effect (check out the effected up “Concrete Walls” and the wonky “I'm Not Done” to get the idea).

There are not many really truly original vocal styles these days, yet listening to the aforementioned track “When I Grow up”, and “Seven”, you actually feel this is something you haven't really heard before, such is the coldness and eeriness of the vocal delivery. There is a passion in the voice, yet also almost a kind of detachment too, a really quite unique combination.

The music is on the whole pretty slow and with quite tribal rhythms in part, but also seemingly reliant on echo effects – it is pretty much everywhere. Through this, everything seems to have an other-worldly, dark quality to it, which works on the whole, but a bit more variety would have been nice in places. It's a good album, but scary as hell – don't play in the dark, or alone either.

MIKE WHYTE