ABBA return says if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Image: Sky News

I thought I'd missed my chance to be among the first to hear a new ABBA song when I went and got myself born in '92 instead of '62.

At age 14, ABBA Gold took up almost permanent residence on my 128MB (yes, megabytes...remember when we measured storage in those?) MP3 player, and to this day there is no party that doesn't go off when someone plays Dancing Queen or Waterloo.

So it was extraordinarily trippy (there is no other word for it) to press play on new material from those almost mythical childhood legends in the year 2021.

In case you've been avoiding the news (same), don't live near enough the Harbour Bridge to notice this, or (as in my case) don't have tradies next door blasting FM radio every hour of the day, let me get you up to speed:

ABBA ARE BRINGING OUT A NEW ALBUM AND THEY RELEASED TWO SINGLES YESTERDAY.

We all on the same page now? Good. Let's listen already.

I STILL HAVE FAITH IN YOU

⭐⭐⭐

I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding as the last three words of the title fell upon my ears. The gentle dotted rhythm, the descending F major arpeggio - ABBA IS IN THE BUILDING, PEOPLE. Despite the oddly cinema-esque strings and brass in the opening, no one but ABBA could write a melody like that.

From here on in, it's a reflective journey with rather twee lyrics that seem to be a love song from ABBA to...ABBA:

I still have faith in you
I see it now
Through all these that faith lives on somehow

There was a union
Of heart and mind
The likes of which are rare and oh so hard to find

The less reassuring chorus ("Do I have it in me?" is asked repeatedly) doesn't stretch the momentum far. This is more of an Andante Andante moment (literally) than Thank You For The Music. There's a soaring moment where they decide "We do have it in us!", though there's nothing groundbreaking here.

But it's a fitting return track for a band that have always been endearingly sentimental.

DON'T SHUT ME DOWN

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the first second of the softly soaring verse (with random lyrics about children playing in a park, no less...OH THE NOSTALGIA), there is magic in the air. Don't Shut Me Down begins like so many ABBA hits: with the promise of one hell of a build-up.

As the verse starts to ascend, dare I hope for a bop?

When a piano glissando sends us sliding into a swaggering groove that's caught between Super Trouper and Voulez Vous in the best way possible, things are looking good. But it's when the chorus hits that we finally get that achingly familiar infusion of starry-eyed hope and bittersweet earnest set to soaring strings, stomping bass and twinkling piano fills.

I admit, dear reader, I wept...because, by jove! They've still got it.

For a band who captured the world not only with their hooks, but with their startling vulnerability, it is so joyful, such a relief to hear them as honest and true as ever.

Admittedly, the aged voices don't have quite the same fresh expression they had before: the wide-eyed innocence in the first bloom of love (and fame), the unbridled exuberance, and eventually the tremulous pain that was all too real behind the scenes.

But there's a joy, a talent and a fight there that isn't going anywhere.