What’s the verdict on ABBA’s first album in 40 years?
For many fans, it’s safe to say absence does makes the heart grow fonder.
“It’s ARRIVED with only 40 years delayed,” one fan tweeted, while another said: “HAPPY VOYAGE DAY!!!”
Another commentator wrote: “It’s no pop classic, but it has some beautiful ABBA flourishes. The voices are just beautiful – Benny & Björn have deliberately avoided using modern overly produced vocals, but some of the lyrics are twee. However, it’s polished, inoffensive and a grower. A fitting final farewell.”
Another fan added on Twitter: “The most remarkable thing about Voyage is that it’s new ABBA that’s still perfectly ABBA after all these years, but you haven’t heard it a thousand times yet.”
Among music critics, however, opinion was more divided.
He wrote: “Voyage is the rare post-reformation album to build upon the band’s legacy without abandoning what we loved about their classic records in the first place. That makes Voyage a surprisingly necessary trip into the present from a band who could have coasted on the warm fumes of adulation ad infinitum.”
He added that while Fältskog and Lyngstad “can still hold a tune,” Andersson and Ulvaeus “have not lost their ability to craft a flowing melody adorned with glittering hooks.”
“Rather than reflecting poignantly on the past, much of the rest of Voyage feels terminally stuck there,” she wrote, before branding “Little Things”, a Christmas song, a “big crime against sense, sentimentality and sequencing.”
