It’s been a long-ass time between drinks, but true pop sensation ABBA have announced they’re back in full swing with a brand new album coming out this year. The Swedish four piece have also dropped not one but two new songs today, which is a real treat and a red-hot way to kick off Friday.
The new album, Voyage, is the band’s first studio record since their 1981 release, The Visitors, making it a whopping 40 years since we’ve really heard from Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid.
And by ‘we’ I absolutely mean ‘our parents’ because fuck knows we weren’t even born the last time ABBA released an album.
Speaking of parents, can someone please check in on everyone’s mum/dad/aunt/uncle/grandparents after this huge news? I’m more than sure there’s ABBA discographies blaring out of hifi systems in houses across the country right now.
Ahead of the album’s release, which is happening on November 5th, ABBA have dropped two brand new singles to give us all a taste of what’s to come.
The first tracks show off different sides of the group – the fun, light pop side on ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ – filled with those iconic harmonies that generations of people know and love about ABBA – and their more emotional, ballad-led side with ‘I Still Have Faith In You’, which eventually blossoms into a stadium-sized crescendo.
If this is the first of the new album, then I can only expect that Voyage – in all its 10-track glory – is set to be yet another timeless offering from the four piece. Like, immediately added to karaoke playlists right across the globe levels of good shit. Hell, someone get the Mamma Mia people on the phone I reckon we can do another sequel off the back of this new album, hey.
For those of us with hopes that a new album means that ABBA are also going on tour, they’ve kinda got plans to do that next year.
The group has been working with George Lucas‘ visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic to create a special concert where the four members of ABBA will perform digitally in a physical, purpose-built ‘ABBA Arena’ in London in May 2022. The VFX company have fully recreated the band members in their golden years using motion capture technology, and there’s a bit of a teaser of how it looks in the video for ‘I Still Have Faith In You’.
Bloody hell, happy Friday mates, I cannot believe that ABBA, the elite lords of the late-night karaoke sesh, are back.
