Anyone who can build modern pop (or if you prefer, pop-rock) music with the same vibe and richness of a late-era Fleetwood Mac, is an artist that should be pinging on the radar of every discerning music fan right now. Because like the aforementioned band, “Separate Ways” is music that feels too big, too lush, too ornate, too…well, too damn good to be summed up in just that three-letter word.
But it isn’t just that there is a sophistication to the song that we rarely see in modern music, especially pop music, Kristian Grostad is happy to push at the musical demarcations, happy not just to stay in his lane and play to the expectations of the listener, or the current fads and fashions of the genre.
So, just as we feel that we have got the measure of this chiming, and indeed charming, indie-infused slice of pop-rock gorgeousness, he throws us a sonic curve ball in the form of a dense, shoegaze-inspired middle-eight, a passage that the likes of My Bloody Valentine would have been more than happy with back in the day.
If the accessible, more mainstream-aligned music has, in recent times, become increasingly unsatisfactory and not fit for purpose, it is because it seems to have lost its bite. What Kristian Grostad proves with “Separate Ways” is that there is a sweet spot where the contagion of pop, the gravitas of rock, and the coolness of indie music can all work together to produce stunning results.
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