Viking love song

It is becoming difficult to travel to Norway these days. The dollar’s tragic weakness against the Euro and a general air of rightful anti-American sensibility on the old continent are both incentives for the average music fan to simply enjoy his or her preferred tunes from the comfort of their home.

However, no matter how subtly xenophobic you may be, there are some compelling reasons to look overseas for interesting and beautiful music, namely in the form of indie-folk Norwegian protege Sondre Lerche. Although our Scandinavian friends may have good public education, us ‘Mericans are stealing all of their good musicians and I would not trade them for all of the socialized health-care in the world.

The land of high taxes and long winters also, not surprisingly, has near-dangerous levels of talented musicians. Apparently spending three months of the year immersed in almost total darkness is an adequate excuse to stay indoors and practice the guitar. Portlanders should learn from this example.

This Saturday, Lerche and his band, The Faces Down, are politely and non-violently invading our shores, representing Norway’s most welcome sonic intrusion since the black-metal band Dimmu Borgir. Although musical styles are diverse throughout the country, there is a pervasive theme common to all northern European music: the undeniable appeal of lost-in-translation lyricism, uber-Viking fashion, and unconventional-yet-victorious instrumental arrangements. All of these are elements of art that domesticated audiophiles desperately need to experience more of–they just don’t know it yet.

Thankfully, Lerche is blissfully aware of our shortcomings and is bringing with him a harmonic, quick-fix to our un-coolness, thus deserving the veneration one would give a king (or prime minister, or dictator, whatever the hell they have over in Norway, no es importante).

The first time you hear a song by Lerche, it would be easy enough to categorize him as merely a peer of other popular northwestern-style indie groups such as Wolf Parade or Band of Horses. Like his cohorts in the genre, he sings in perfectly comprehensible English, has a full repertoire of short, rocking songs and mournful, ambient folk poetry at his disposal. And he has a rabid cult following that, at times, threatens to exceed it’s underground-ness, much to the chagrin of hipsters everywhere.

But there is something about Lerche’s interpretation of the often-maligned generic role of singer/songwriter that deserves an educated listen. His older brothers and sisters in his hometown of Bergen exposed him to various obscure and worldly forms of music from an early age, so that by the time he formally began studying the guitar at age 12, he found himself being inspired musically by Brazilian-folk, cool jazz and strange-sounding Norwegian ’80s music. His early work is an amalgamation of non-native styles that also honors contemporary American artists such as Elvis Costello, who he later went on to tour with.

Adding credibility to his uniqueness, to the best of my knowledge Sondre Lerche has never recorded even one Bob Dylan cover, the distinguishing badge-de-cliché among many a singer/songwriter in this day and age.

While the energy of bands like Wolf Parade and some of their contemporaries may at times appeal to a predominantly male audience, Saturday’s performance at the Doug Fir is a concert that will safely appeal to both men and women from all walks of life. Yes, Lerche sometimes sings about love, but so does Iron Maiden. Get over it. You can score points with your lady-friend without feeling any less “dude-like,” because for every ever-so-slightly estrogenically oriented song of his like “Don’t Be Shallow,” there is a scathing counterpart like “Sleep on Needles.”

His backup band rocks, his vocal style sounds like a less-warbly Devendra Banhart, minus some, if not all, of the pretentiousness (because no-one could possibly be as pretentious as Devendra). If you needed any more convincing, Sondre Lerche’s ancestors were most likely Viking marauders of a most cruel nature, and statistics say yours were probably the impoverished, peasant shop-keeps whose villages they raided on a day-to-day basis.

Sondre Lerche, the Faces Down, and Dan Wilson Saturday, Nov. 10 Doug Fir Lounge $15