Today's album: Lost In Heaven makes exuberant involuntary arenarock

Much of the very best music carries a inherent conflict between the different extremes. It is when they are added together that the magic occurs.

Ellery James Roberts, lead singer and songwriter of the Lost In Heaven along with his partner Ebony Hoorn, the world's currently best rock voice in sweden. A guttural, slightly tormented, and yet unexpectedly sensitive sandpappersstämma that should send allsångsvåg after allsångsvåg over the sold-out stands at, say, Ullevi stadium or Wembley. Especially when it is also combined with the t-shirttryckvänliga slagordstexter and LUH's ambitions that, at times, make the music so powerful powerful that it can move mountains and split seas.

been about thirty-five years younger, started his artistic career in a squat in Manchester and seen more performance-exhibits than the John Ford movies, he had probably sounded about as Lost Under Heaven. When the duo at the ”Love hates what you become” and the predecessor ”Spiritual songs for lovers to sing” take in as most approach the the the symphonic rock music, and the closest to the pathetic doom-laden romanticism of ”Born to run” in a way that is much more beautiful, more modern and more exciting than when the more literalists copycats have tried.

In songs like ”Most high”, ”Serenity says,” and the mighty finale ”For the wild” do LUH nordengelsk släpig gospel, who are fighting for the basic humanity – which some argue is ”godhetsknark” – which has been lost in the simple, but oh so dangerous, högerpopulismens era. It is rock music that are looking for that original little sparkle, which is still very hard to think of himself as a redemptive and transformative power. Even if it should be, and perhaps is, hopelessly out of date.

at the same time seems Roberts and Hoorn, a Dutch artist and artist, to be very uninterested in reaching to the arenas and the crowds. In all cases, as long as it means that they are forced to simplify or defend those big ideas they are after, and quite often, actually also get hold of. Play LUH arenarock – and very much the point, as I said, in that direction – so it is most unwillingly, probably with very reluctantly.

the consent of the LUH is also the most lasting impression of the group's two albums, how very intimate they are. Roberts and the släpiga Hoorn växelsjunger its simultaneously naive and perceptive omvärldsanalytiska protest songs, and declarations of love to each other, as they are clearly and deeply in love, soulmates, they seem to be.

”We against the world” is probably one of the most worn out and tired expression, but in the case of Roberts and Hoorn, it is true, really. ”Love hates what you become” is revolutionsromantisk – and sometimes just exuberant romantic – rock music where everything is possible to fight and defeat the only man have the right man at his side.

Best track: ”For the wild”

Read more music reviews by Mattias Dahlström, for example on how the avant-garde unites the hard with the hopeful.