Test - Milk In My Language

  by Anthony Dhanendran

published: 12 / 4 / 2004

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Review

Test start off their debut album, ‘Milk In My Language’, sounding like the Kings of Convenience. It must be a Scandinavian thing, the light-touch electronic sound backed up by odd bits of acoustic instrumentation. The voices of Sebastian Buttrich and Piet Breinholm Bendtsen, who make up the Danish Test, even sound like that of Erlend Oye of the Norwegian Kings. What begins as a light stroll through housey easy listening quickly turns into something entirely other, though. The opener ‘The Swingers’ segues into ‘Four In’, a trudge through winter sludge compared to the autumnal skip of the opener. It’s a disturbing but effective change of mood, and one that focuses the listener on the music. If the third song, ‘Intersection’, then sounds like Ladytron more than anything else, then ‘White Cities’ brings to mind what Kings of Convenience would sound like if they attempted a Joy Division cover. It picks up the frantic drumming and high-pitched bass hook. It’s a mixed bag, then, at other times calling up images of Bjork, Kraftwerk (on ‘Gigantic’) and even the Pet Shop boys, when Test do the dual spoken vocal thing on ‘Ten’. What is amazing is that Buttrich and Bendtsen manage to pull the whole thing off. In amongst the mish-mash of influences and styles, a consistent thrust emerges, and the album as a whole is consistent in its outlook. That that outlook is persistently grey and moody can be a bit draining after 50-odd minutes, but this is an album full of ideas and brimming with talent.

Track Listing:-

1 The Swingers
2 Four In
3 Intersection
4 White Cities
5 Call Confession
6 Company Growth
7 Gigantic
8 Like Wyatt
9 Massive Eternal You
10 The Desert
11 Backhander
12 j.e.
13 Ten
14 The face
15 Note