WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

TRACKLIST: Thank You; I’m Fine; Limit To Love; Shut Up; Sometimes; I Just Want It; Sunshine; Moves To Make; Settle Down; If You Want To; Trying; Bitte

Freyr is clearly laying the groundwork here for a lengthy career and our only qualm with his sophomore album is that there is nothing quite so catchy as either of his Eurovision entries Think About Things or 10 Years.

• Read on for reasons including how to see Freyr on tour in the UK this winter

What I Made An Album does succeed in doing is persuading its listener over its 12 songs that there is enough about its writer and performer to sustain interest far from the Eurovision bubble where many may have first of him.

Thank You is anthemic yet understated while I’m Fine is a lazy title but probably the most accessible song here.

Limit To Love is laidback and cool while Shut Up contains the zinger: ‘I’d like to think I’m extroverted but honestly it comes and goes.’

Freyr divided opinion with his appearance as part of the Liverpool Songbook section of the Eurovision 2023 interval act performing a cover of Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again but it made perfect sense for us given he was unofficial winner of the Eurovision that never was in 2020 with Think About Things and was unable to perform 10 Years live the following year because of Covid.

In fact Freyr has long had a connection with the Contest because his father was a bongo player for Katla Maria in Icelandic selection Söngvakeppni 1993, finishing ninth with the song Samba.

I Made An Album‘s success is that it builds on the hypnotic electropop of its predecessor & Co which was released in June 2019 as well as the viral sensations of Things (a number 1 in Iceland but also a number 3 in Ireland and 34 in the UK) and Years (number 1 in Iceland, 43 in the UK and a hit in Netherlands, Norway and Sweden).

In fact, it’s the later songs on the album that remind of the commercial potential within. I Just Want It is not at all reflective of the album’s sentiment with its lyric: ‘I want my face on the cover of a magazine/I want my videos to play on a million screens/Play huge shows, hear the thunderous screams/I want to make the biggest spectacle the world has ever seen I Just Want It‘ and the thundering bass of If You Want To rocks.

Freyr is currently touring Europe and, if like us you can’t wait to join him because he won our Best Gig monsta in 2021, you can join him at 10 UK gigs in November and December including 2 at the 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Daði Freyr Tickets
• Have you heard any Daði Freyr and seen any of his shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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