Second by Liss review

My debut EP review will be on the melodic Second by the critically acclaimed group Liss. Hailing from Aarhus, Denmark, the group has been active in creating music for about 5 years now, starting in 2015. While I haven’t heard a lot of the group’s first EP, Try, released in 2015, Second caught my eye on the album art, and it’s supposed similarity to the Canadian singer/songwriter, MorMor, who has some pretty good songs like “Heaven’s Only Wishful” and “Outside”.

It was a nice Friday night when I clicked the CD into the player, putting my headphones in. Sitting around with some friends, I admit to only half listening to the EP, at first play. Distracted by friends and conversations, I was casually bobbing and tapping my foot to the first song. I had taken my headphones out for a while to chat, and when I had put them back in again, I had barely caught the 20 seconds or so of the third song, “Vibrations”. It immediately caught my attention, so I restarted it, and I can’t fully describe the first time I heard the track completely. But, what I can say about it is that it’s an extremely good track, the punchy drums, the grooving bassline and the vocals made me want to get up and dance to it. I still can hardly sit still listening to it, almost uncontrollably bobbing to the infectious beat. I had everybody listen to it as soon as I broke out of the trance of listening to it myself, 4 or 5 times in a row. But, that’s not to say it necessarily has great replayability.

Some other tracks carry that groove, like track 4, “Money”, or track 2, “Reputation”. Others slow it down, like track 5, “Pretending”. Track 6, “Runaway”, is a bit unique to me off the EP, because it’s both slow, but also spices it up with that bass and drum that shows up in earlier tracks. It’s a nice way to tie up the end of the record, almost like the conclusion of an essay, bringing all the previous themes back together. They all elicit some distant feeling of nostalgia that I can’t place to any event in my life, but it’s there nonetheless.

It’s something magical about good music production that an artist should try to strive for, and it makes it more accessible to those who may not generally listen to this type of music. Overall, I’d rate this EP a solid 7/10, there wasn’t much with it that I didn’t like. I’m really excited to see what other music comes out of this group! 

Check out the album here.

KSUA GM