Comeback records are at best an ambivalent affair. Bands get back together to cash out on their previous successes, or to squeeze out the last drop of some outdated aesthetic with questionable artistic intent. 

Happily though, this is not a comeback record, although it’s been almost eight years since the last album. The band never officially called it quits, or it was never actually a band in the first place. After two extremely well received albums, main man Sjur Lyseid just let the project quietly fizzle out, choosing to rather work as a producer and co-writer of other people’s music. With Half Empty he’s back doing what he does best, writing lyrically dense, classic pop songs, that range from low key acoustic numbers, through deeply orchestrated arrangements, to snappy, catchy guitar pop. 

Although the record is self produced and mixed, and even largely performed by Lyseid himself, it’s not an album that springs for indulgent sonic experimentation or lo-fi excursions. The songs are rather presented in a tasteful, timeless manner, which means The Little Hands of Asphalt isn’t reaching for a current radio pop sound, nor any specific subgenre. There are elements of folk, power pop and even kraut, and nods to Serge Gainsbourgh or Brian Wilson, but Half Empty is not album that regurgitates any specific influence or time period. Still, in a sense, it feels like these songs have always just been there.

Lyrically, Lyseid is as sharp and affluent as ever. From the road movie-feel of No Reception, where he comes off as a more romantically inclined John Darnielle, to the meta-country of “Six Feet Over”, the implicit world-weariness of “Dystopian Sci-Fi” or emotional impact of “The Buildings, then the Trees”, his characters can be equally jaded, hopeful or just plain moronic in their actions or statements.   

All in all, this is neither the throwaway comeback record nor the next big thing, just an honest, pure and mostly understated collection of Good Songs.