REVIEW: Morten Nygaard — Trespassing (SINGLE)
Morten Nygaard has been getting a lot of hype from the press lately, and when I listen to his new single “Trespassing,” I can definitely see where the buzz is coming from. Nygaard had originally gained attention from critics on the strength of his honey-sweet lead vocal, but in “Trespassing” he’s trying to get a little more elaborate with the way he arranges his music, and arguably going into a deeper end of the pool than many of his contemporaries are ready to explore. Lyrically speaking, this is a lot more complicated than his first two songs are, but he isn’t changing anything about the way he’s singing — just the way he’s making his mood accessible to anyone within earshot of these harmonies.
There were two ways to get to the narrative of these lyrics, either by nudging the listener closer to the theme with a lot of angst-ridden instrumentation or pushing us as hard as the drums can summon the strength for the verse, and I’m really glad that Nygaard decided to go with the former over the latter. He sounds a lot more attentive in this style, and I think it certifies “Trespassing” as a true ballad more than it is a passive pop song with some pretty serious R&B influences. The aesthetics are muddled intentionally, and I don’t know that we would be getting the most out of this player’s versatility were he playing to a straighter artistry than the one he’s portraying with this latest single.
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The master mix is, in a word, compelling, and it got me thinking a lot about the type of venues this artist could get himself into and really dominate on stage. The intimacy of his vocal makes me want to see him in a quiet little club, but the enormity of the melodies that he’s able to sway in just about any direction he wants leads me to think that his proper place is rocking an arena, where anything the audience does feeds into his play. It’s a best of both worlds situation in “Trespassing,” and it indicates that there are a lot of different spots that Nygaard could approach without having to do a lot of adaptation as a player compared to what he already does in the studio.
I’d love to hear more of the stripped-down melodies that “Trespassing” consists of, and I think that if Morten Nygaard experiments with anything in his next single, it should be more acoustic elements. There’s a bucolic tone that’s hinted at in the backdrop of this song, but I want him to see what he can do with it when he makes it the centerpiece of a single, or even a deep cut in any album he delivers in the future. He’s cut out for big things in this business, and anyone who listens to “Trespassing” and falls in love with the way this hook snatches up anyone within its reach is going to concur. All in all, this is Nygaard’s best thus far.
Colin Jordan
