Molly Nilsson - Amateur Molly Nilsson

'Amateur' is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Molly Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.

'Amateur'is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in 13 songs, 'Amateur'states clearly that we should live our life with eternal curiosity, offers us an open hand of comradeship out of the rat race.

The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First single, 'How Much Is The World' asks us to re-evaluate value in the face of a Neo-liberal system squeezing the life out of our loves. Pulsing opener, 'Die Cry Lie', satirises the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord changes, heartbreaker, 'Valhalla', carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on. When the drums crash in on the line “It’s going to get better now, you’ll see, going to be much better off without me” there is a world of feeling swirling about in the vocal delivery. One reading of the track might be that it’s a break up song but the subtext is classic Molly Nilsson: by living truthfully, making mistakes, we’re active agents against the myriad oppressions of the world.
 
'All The Way' takes the theme for a run into the eternal sunset. It’s a manifesto for living fully. “Take it all the way, and never get it back” - it’s the process that’s the important point. The journey not the destination. 'Big Life' follows on like a part 2: An ode not only to Molly Nilsson’s career of endless gigs, endless connections with people, it’s a massive ode for following your dreams, doing it yourself. Closer, 'The Bitter End', is a powerful anthem for friendship, another definition of love infused in Nilsson’s work, A beautifully poignant ode to comradeship til the end, it seems to be the songwriter approaching aging, approaching life’s inevitability with the same vigour and earnestness, the same love of life she enjoyed at the onset of her career.
 
There are moments on 'Amateur'shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse.. Nilsson’s open-armed beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker, 'Get A Life', can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping 'Swedish Nightmare' might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song about the duality of living life large, what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you want to?