Lars and the Hands of Light - The Looking Glass

Tracklisting:

1. Me me me
2. Stranger to the sea
3. Three to the Floor
4. Multicolored
5. Hey my love, Hey love!
6. The Looking Glass
7. Keep My Feet Tagging Along
8. Girl Flu
9. Face Your Lover
10. Christmas Comatose

Meet Lars and The Hands of Light. This brand new 4-person
combo out of Copenhagen, Denmark release their first album
The Looking Glass. As a debut this album seems exceptionally
mature, coherent and basically just bloody well done. This
has to do with the fact that the members – especially the
central character Lars Vognstrup – are by no means green
debutants.
When you listen to the first two radio smash hits Me Me Me
and Hey My Love, Hey Love! – that has already proven their
strength in the home country of Denmark – it is hard to
imagine that Lars ”i Lommen” Vognstrup was the singer and
front man of the successful Danish metal band Raunchy for
10 years. Or that Lars’ musical career started out rapping
about The Smiths together with childhood friend, Kim LAS.
The two collaborators later formed the electro pop band
Money Your Love who had a major hit with For Kristoffer.
Lars then toured the world for a few years with the label
mates from Junior Senior and at the same time formed the
band Wolfkin in 2006 with Kristian Gotfredsen. Their debutalbum
Brand New Pants received a lot of recognition when
released in Scandinavia, USA, Germany, Iceland, Finland,
Switzerland and Austria. While touring with Junior Senior
Lars met the LA band IMA Robot and was offered to join
them. While in LA, Lars initiated a DJ career and was also
offered to join Ryan Gosling’s band Dead Man’s Bones.
The Los Angeles hiatus also resulted in a lot of new songs. It
became clear to Lars that he wanted to focus on playing his
own music, so he packed his bags and came home to Denmark
to form a band and finish his new album at Crunchy
Frogs own Kondi Frost studios. That the band name contains
Lars himself is significant. On this debut album he steps out
of the shadow and makes his mark as a real front man and
terrific songwriter with international format.
The Looking Glass is a tour de force in intelligent pop songs.
It’s an album that you can dance to from start to end, without
feeling patronized in any way. You’ll find influences from 60s
pop, soul and girl groups, from 70s rock, from 80s synth pop
and from the golden era of hip hop. Some songs are intense,
intimate, naked love songs and others are up-tempo celebrations
of life. Some are dry and hard, some are wet and grandiose.
All of these moods, styles and sentiments are governed
superbly by Lars’ own production to form a classic album that
is easily accessible yet highly addictive. And there is something
here both for the pop heads and the music nerds. These
melodies will go straight to your heart. Straight to your brain.
Straight to your feet. Some even to your groin.
Take a look and take a step into The Looking Glass, and you’ll
never want to leave.