Abba Voyage review: Sweden’s finest delivers a moving, albeit predictable, tail song
The long-awaited comeback album by Abba is finally here.
The Swedish band, all now in their 70s, recorded the 10-track effort after being reunited to film the concert performance, which will include “Abba-tar” versions of themselves.
Here, the PA news agency Alex Green gives his verdict.
This can be the mother of all pop reunions.
After almost 40 years, Agnetha Faltskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad have reformed to release one last album – an ode to their long, tangled history.
Abba, like Fleetwood Mac – another ’70s band whose best songs came out of their marital misery, has never really gone out of style.
But in recent years, the Swedish troupe has been rehabilitated from providers of guilty pleasures and Magic FM favorites to a force that can capture a new generation of TikTok-born listeners.
This may have had something to do with their ever-growing commercial empire: a hit musical, two films, an immersive dining experience and now a virtual concert with “Abbatars” performing their biggest hits in a purpose-built venue in London.
However, Voyage should dispel any hints that the band is making new music for money.
One can safely assume that they are not fighting in that department.
Voyage, it’s clear, is about heritage.
Abba has been clear.
This is their last album – and it nicely ends their career.
Wisely enough, the band is not trying to reinvent the wheel.
Instead, songwriters Benny and Björn choose to address the topics that affect them now: aging, parenting, divorce, domestic struggle, and, ultimately, acceptance.
This makes Voyage a strangely moving experience, given that their back catalog has become synonymous with unbounded good times.
In Still Have Faith In You, an ode to their lasting working relationship, everyone hits the right minor notes.
Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s voices, deepened by time, are intertwined to deliver pure emotional slump.
It is a subdued but emotional performance, and when they sing “We stand on a peak / humble and grateful to have survived” it is difficult to stop the tears from pouring.
The band really unleashed on Keep An Eye On Dan, a simmering ode to co-parenting with theatrical strings, anthemic synths and a crescendo of a finale.
It captures some of the energy from Gimme! Give me! Give me! (A Man After Midnight) but instead of lust we get a more mature subject.
That is not to say that Voyage lacks the peculiarity that made Abba’s heyday so beloved.
Bumble Bee is, yes, an ode to the humble bumblebee who regrets their difficult situation and contains the immortal line, “Oh, how I do adore the sight / Of his rather clumsy, erratic escape”.
Ode To Freedom, which ends the album, shoots for pathos but delivers something more superficial. This is a rare mistake.
These songs will not be staples on the dance floor, but they justify Abbas’ decision to name their last album Voyage.
It is a fitting culmination of their 50 year journey and I assign it 8/10.
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