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Album Review: Lust for Youth - Growing Seeds


Hannes Norrvide spends most of Growing Seeds interested in cold intimacy. The album, released under the name Lust for Youth on Brooklyn-label Sacred Bones, is melancholic and spacious synth-pop that struggles to remain detached in the face of new relationships and a new home.

There’s an obvious tension, like with peers Cold Cave and Factory Floor, between making something dark and finding that darkness comforting. Growing Seeds took shape after Norrvide moved to Malmö, Sweden, and as he mentioned in an interview with FACT “…I felt very isolated, and went to a lot to techno parties in the industrial outskirts. So when writing the songs I was influenced by that.” The first track, “Behind Curtains” is Norrvide’s most straightforward dance tune. It’s got an easy preset four-on-the-floor beat, and the most recognizable chorus on an album that usually buries them. Norrvide repeats, “Even though it’s cold.” When he eventually multi-tracks the vocal, giving it a pained echo, he takes a rallying cry and turns it into a plea.

 A solid strain of post-punk is attached to Growing Seeds’ hollowed out shell. Norrvide, in that same FACT interview, “I wanted to make post-punk but I can’t really play any instruments, and all I had was an old Casio keyboard.” He was able to meld the two; Lust for Youth’s sound is as indebted to Throbbing Gristle as Gang of Four, with its mix of mechanic drums and wiry song structures. Closing track “Neon Lights Appear” features Norrvide’s monotone over crawling keyboard taps. As the chorus approaches the notes get brighter and hopeful until a sputtering industrial noise spasm erases the sense of ease he carefully constructed.

 Norrvide's ideas can sound sketched out and hollow. “La Rouge” is more half-formed cosmic piano exercise than a fully formed track, while the freshman philosophy ramblings of “Modern Life” are misguided. The best songs on Growing Seeds avoid tried on cleverness.  “Cover Their Faces” is menacing, the closest Norrvide gets to icy anxiety, while follow up “Always Changing” confidently escalates into steely frenzy. “Champagne” is the most accomplished. It’s lushly layered and buoyant, a love song that cuts through the posturing on the rest of the album. 

 Growing Seeds was born out of isolation in an unknown city, and its songs reflect the confusion and discomfort that go along with a move away from home. Now that Lust for Youth is a two-piece, the project recently added Sacred Bones label-mate Loke of Copenhagen based Vår, it’ll be interesting to see what direction Norrvide's music will take. It probably won’t be sunny.

 Grade: B


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