The 5 Best Songs We Heard At ESNS17
It’s been exactly a month since we attended the great candy shop for new music which goes by the name of Eurosonic Noorderslag. Present were over 380 acts traveling across whole Europe to get to the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Being an university city pur sang, over 25% of its 200.000 population are students, you can smell the teen spirit running through the venues. Between the eierballen, a local delicacy of a deep fried egg with ragout, we also heard some incredible music and five of the songs which have been stuck in our heads ever since.
1. Be Charlotte - Machines That Breathe
This Glaswegian songsmith did’t hide her accent, but why should she when it suits Charlotte’s quirky looks so perfectly? When Anne-Marie had to cancel her highly-awaited performance on Thursday night Charlotte saved the day by filling up her spot at Simplon with her lovely indie pop. The world be so much better if everybody would be a little more like Charlotte.
2. HAUS - Two Minds
HAUS form London turned the front hall of Huize Maas into a great house party with their danceable indie pop. Two Minds was a great ending of their set on Thursday evening. We saw a couple of promotors and festival directors in the front rows dancing along, so we think they’re pretty sure of a great festival summer.
3. Declan McKenna - The Kids Don't Wanna Come Home
Declan McKenna was crowned the overall winner according to almost every media outlet covering the festival. Often compared to a one-man-band Arctic Monkeys, he swayed us over with a setlist filled with only killer tracks. At the moment he’s still supporting Blossoms (one of last year’s ‘winners’ of the festival) on their European tour, but we’re pretty sure he could’ve done it on his own as well. Come on, he’s already playing both Coachella weekends and one of Japan’s biggest festivals, do we need to say more?!
4. ADNA - Overthinking
The originally Swedish singer-songwriter blew us away with her 2 Meter session on the day programme, where she showcased some of the tracks of her astonishing third album Closure (which will be released on March 17 by the way). We tried to catch her in the evening again as her angelic voice would not be out of place at the Lutherse Kerk, a beautiful yet tiny church with two rooms. As the church was so crowded we skipped the queue and went on to be surprised by the next act on the list...
5. Sløtface - Angst
As we’ve tipped this lot from Norway before we’re dying to see what they’re like live. So we entered De Spieghel around midnight, which turns out to be the perfect timing for some feminist punk-pop. Frontwoman Haley Shea makes a great performance for a full-house and maybe it her name but she even reminds us of her almost namesake Hayley Williams. Not the worst example to be compared to. Ending the set with an engaged audience singing along to one of their Shave My Head they made a great ending of our Eurosonic adventure.
