The Quietus at Aurora

It’s traditional in Norway to compare Aurora Aksnes to Susanne Sundfør, but the first thing to strike your roving reporter tonight is that she in fact sounds more like Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries. This is no snarky remark: before O’Riordan started attacking air hostesses and warbling like a royal songbird drunk on mead, she was quite something. Check their debut, ‘Linger’, to refresh your memories. Anyway, we’re getting off track here. The point is she has a lovely, lilting voice that has clearly won the hearts of a heaving crowd who seem to greet each song with the excitement normally reserved for… well, Susanne Sundfør. (OK: shoot me now!) Her songs are perhaps a little more anodyne, but no one seems bothered by that. With high value production values and a glossy sound, one imagines it won’t be too long before Aurora becomes a benchmark against whom others are measured. Be kind to those air hostesses, please.