polaroids of androids

As I write this review, I sit in a kitchen within a centuries old university dorm in the heart of Copenhagen. Initially I thought it inconsequential that I found myself in the homeland of Figurines, whose album When The Deer Wore Blue I happened to be reviewing. However on reflection, I know feel it important to take into account what little knowledge of the city and it's character that I have now gained.

Copenhagen is a very flat city. Figurines are similar in that they are consistent and rarely stray too far from their comfort zone. While this can in some cases make for less than inspiring material it also affords them the simple elegance of doing what they know well and coming up with a solid overall product - in other words, while there aren't terribly many peaks, troughs are equally as rare. In the city's regard it means it's easy to get around by bike, while in the case of the band it means that listening to their album is a pleasurable experience all the way through.

Copenhagen is also a small city (15 minutes bike ride out of the city centre is considered a long way), but seems to output more than the sum of its parts. Figurines are similar in that while they hail from a small city in Scandinavia, they have managed to find broader appeal to plenty of fans elsewhere. This is probably helped by the fact that they sing in English, however it probably has more to do with the influences they draw upon - The Beach Boys come to mind immediately, although there are plenty of others - that many people find familiar and therefore comforting. The band put enough of their own spin on these well trodden themes however, to come up with some originality, helping them to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.

Finally, Copenhagen has a lot of people named Christian (or Kristian), Claus, Mads and Jens. In fact in my short time here, I myself have met at least 2 of each. This just happens to be the names of the members of the band. I've also met a lot of Anders', but there's none of those in the band, so unfortunately I can't work that in to the review very well. The other thing I didn't manage to work in to the review was my favourite local slandering of the capital of Norway, just north of Denmark, so obviously a fierce rival and source of endless goading. It goes something like this - Stockholm is the Venice of Scandinavia, Copenhagen is the Paris of Scandinavia, while Oslo is the Århus of Scandinavia. The Australian equivalent of this would be jokes about Adelaide.