We're on Your Side

by Ned Raggett Slaraffenland's third album and follow-up release to their American debut, Private Cinema, finds the Danish group continuing to be perfectly engaging and pleasant -- which might be part of the problem. We're on Your Side is very much a product of its international time, a cross-border 21st century rock that is warm-sounding and understated, wide open and aiming to recapitulate little that isn't already known and felt. Harmony singing about vague emotional states of mind -- the lead single and title track's sentiments could refer to any conflict or none -- proceeds in lock step with gentle chugs of rock instrumentation tinged with flecks of experiment in a comfortable vein. Horns liquidly play here, crumbling hiss and percussive kick-up-your-heels roil appear there, all in a very listenable enough way. It'll doubtless put some smiles on some faces as it goes, but it neither reaches for more nor tries to be anything less. Perhaps it is enough, but does it have to be?