Swedish band Robert John David is heralding the second album “Livet är Enkelt” to the audience soon after the debut album. The album, which consists of eleven tracks, comes to life with Robert’s analytical thinking with the indie rock tunes. Although the album is in Swedish, we can still feel what the tracks are saying somehow with its musical color. Unlike the name of the album, which means the life is easy, paradoxically Robert John David puts finger on topics that are not at all simple. Starting with a critique of individualism, the album examines different and important existential problems such as joy and love, party phobia, fear of death, future and religion. Robert John David does all this with all the fun and crazy timbre of indie rock. While we are listening to the album, we feel like we actually went to a concert, and the concert starts with calm tracks, and we come to the moment of climax as the songs play one after another. It is at this very moment that Robert John David makes all the rock star in the audience feel. “Kaffe och nikotin” tells us that at the end of the album, punk and alternative rock weather will blow. We try to make a pogo with the incredible instrumental section at the end of “Glitter och sång”, but “Den sista tiden” calms the mess. However, since the “Outlive us all” starts, the climax moments of the album has again starts. Right at that moment, if we listened to the whole album at a concert, we would like to imagine what environment we would be in. Robert John David would probably fascinate us with his incredible stage performance. As of the last two minutes of “Outlive us all” everything is getting crazy. Robert is exactly saying
“Ge oss kaos, ge oss helvete (Give us chaos, give us hell)
Allt eftersom blir det bättre (As we heal)
En efter en avverka oss (Cut us one by one)
Alla dör vi någon gång (As we heal, we all die)”
and makes us feel the chaoticness of the rock music world. Finally, “Sluta aldrig söka” derives some kind of synthesis from both the calm and rock-n-roll inspired timbres, and actually appears as a track that summarizes Robert John David’s music. By the way, the album also feels like it was recorded as a live album, but it didn’t.
Robert, who wrote the lyrics in a full year, completed this process in a spontaneous way on the couch, in the kitchen, with the words he wrote with the black-metal guitar he purchased at the age of fourteen. Robert, who regards writing songs as a musical diary, scribbles in his diary even if he goes through whatever happens. He accepts this as renovating the system. Robert’s brothers Fredrik Serholt and Linus Serholt also supported many songs in production and writing. The entire track, “Det finns en plats”, was written by Linus.
Obviously, Robert John David appears in their press kit with such a detailed methodology that the words are really inadequate for the musician to take such care. It is possible to follow the songwriting process of the musician for each song in the eleven-track album.
Our favorite tracks in the album are “I min cykelborg”, “Blir de nåt bättre sen”, “Glitter och sång”, “Outlive us all” and “Sluta aldri söka”. Meanwhile, the beautiful cover of the album is from the hands of talented designer Frida Wallgren. Get Robert John David on your radar, now.
