Smerz head straight to the party on Big city life

Catharina Soltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, known as the Norwegian art pop duo Smerz, have bottled the events of a night out with its ecstasy and fleetingness and gloom through 2021’s experimental odyssey Believer or last year’s fictional pop star Allina, but on Big city life, they head straight to the party.

Their ability to make music about the club and not necessarily in it is strange and unwavering. “Roll the dice”, with its stilted delivery and jabby piano, shouldn’t be a peppy number, but its lyrics point in that direction: “You’re a girl in the streets / And you shouldn’t think twice… / Let the city lights surround you / Make it shimmer, make it bright." It has all the feel of a first night out in a new place, feeling the buzz of concrete and metal pulse. On the record’s mesmerizing opening track, too, they marvel at “The freedom of a big city,” one that can stifle as well as open yourself up to new possibilities. Everything is available, which makes everything daunting.

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than on the album’s beguiling and wonderful centerpiece, “Feisty”. It’s an oddly simple, deadpanned-approach to the club where every line is delivered in accordance with the physics of the night, no dressing or metaphor. Rather, simple descriptions abound: “Makeup on my mind, these shoes so far down / Little red skirt and a blouse my mother found,” like an anthropologist taking notes for those who couldn’t make it. Their writing is complex in its simplicity – further on, they groan at an art school gang who shows up, “and they’re always plenty.” Why “plenty”? There are hundreds of adjectives that would better give focus to the group, but instead, they note the size of the crowd, like a foggy, dense, outline of what’s happening. Whether this is a language kerfuffle or a genuine literary moment, it’s a mind-snagging line that barely says anything. Maybe they’re taking a cue from the gang themselves: “They don’t say much, use their art to show compassion.”

Smerz isn’t always at the club though, and Big city life benefits from periods of downtime. On the refreshingly sincere trip-hop “You got time and I got money”, they slowdance around simple affectations: “I like these clean t-shirts on you / I like the restaurants you choose.” On the swanky spoken-word “Imagine this”, they recount a first date, the boy’s desire at the girl’s surprising cleverness. But they go their separate ways even though the connection was strong: “And as the city turns quiet / You both have to admit / That this isn’t now / But this could’ve been it.”

Similar to Charli xcx, Smerz’ downtempo songs might be more revealing than their anthems. They cry and second-guess before the party on “But I do”, and a zap of realization comes on “A thousand lies”, where they bleakly sing, “I’m realizing lately that I won’t feel like this again.” The anxiety creeps in on “Easy”, the closing track, where their Tirzah-esque voices cut across the haze, daydreaming about closeness that might be harder to achieve. “I’ll be the one you know,” they assure, “We’ll talk about the things you don’t talk about with your friends,” matching a drunk promise that you know you won’t keep. Or maybe the person on the other side just isn’t into you, and there’s nothing you can do. The trip ends with the record’s most brilliant line, succinctly summarizing the whirlwind of a night out before the comedown of realization: “Have I said too much?”