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“She's a Sailor” album debuted in 2020, a record we didn't get to review according to a quick dive into the archive. Well, it obviously got good words on the road elsewhere. However, the duo has been on our radar before, both with a live review from 2017 and mention of a couple of good singles.

It is also two newer singles that form the basis of this 4-track EP, which also serves as a warm-up for album number two. The record is set to be released next year, but here, in addition to the two singles, we get a taste of two completely new tracks.

So what does “Radio Now” taste like? Well, the title doesn't lie, it kind of tastes like well-played and nicely produced indie radio pop. Previous tracks I've heard from the duo may have had a slight aftertaste of something light-folk, it's almost completely gone now. We go all in on radio pop and soft indie. After all, it tastes quite delicate, even though it's not exactly a genre that satiates me for a particularly long time. But now the EP format is also often a musical snack or appetizer, and based on such a premise, there is certainly a lot to come by here. "Radio Now" opens the EP with elegant, soft strokes from the indie pop brush, catchy beats driving the track towards a fine, catchy chorus. Between chorus and verse we get a short passage that has some Burt Bacharach pouting about it. A discreet chorus also stamps into the song here and there, adding to the uplifting and airy atmosphere.

The craftsmanship is fine, if I have one gripe with a track like this, it's that it almost gets TOO breezy. There is no playing through, instead the song from vocals, over the instrumentation to production is like a comfortable cotton blanket. It makes the song to me, even though it's only a little over 3 minutes long, feel like it's running in circles. And that is my overall problem with “Radio Now”, as with the related Jonah Blacksmith (after they really became a pop band) it quickly becomes very nice, polite and a little too nice to listen to. "Such a Bore", which closes the EP, has a little more weight. It is just before that you can stomp along a little to the slow rhythm that choppily pumps the song forward. There is a bit of a work song to the number, "out in the field and grab hold", which seems a bit like a call back to the folk music roots. The song grows and builds well to some kind of peak, but it's never going to scratch. Even a number about a working man does not give dirty hands or sweat on the forehead. The piano ballad "How Love Goes" has something 90s about it, I think a bit of Counting Crows. Just without the last bit of desperation, nerve or anything that stings a bit. Both members of “She's a Sailor” can sing and play, and the duo can write songs that just work, no doubt about it. And it sounds indisputably good. It just doesn't really get under my skin.

It also means that you can sit and nod along to "For Your Love" for a little over 3 minutes, and think "that's also a pretty good song", and forget about it right after. "What do you say to the desperate man of sorrow?", it reads somewhere in the text, I don't know? Maybe sing and play so I can really feel your pain, maybe it would hit me deeper?

I actually really like “She's a Sailor” and “Radio Now”, if it wasn't clear enough from the above. As good as the duo are at what they do, it just annoys me that I don't like them MORE. And that it will not go deeper than which is the case. Conversely, you can also say that the songs on “Radio Now” also seem streamlined for calm radio airplay. There is no shame in that, and it has its justification.

By Ken Damgaard Thomsen for Danish music magazine, “GFR”