It's always about this time of year that there is a lot of fuss made about whether Chinese New year is the Year of the Dragon or the Year of the Rat - well we here at #TEAMw21 wonder if maybe it is to be the year of the Robin - or to be more precise the year of the Robyn Red. There's no doubting her talent in a live environment and her singles, when they appear are always excellent, it is just that they come around with the frequency of Halley's Comet - until now! We are promised five ( count them ) five new tracks for 2025 which will form Robyn's debut EP.
The opening installment of the batch of quintuplets comes with "Between The Two Of Us". Sound wise it is definitely a mixture of the anthemic nature of When The Sun Sets" with the rootsiness of "Luke Jackson" which combine to make a heady brew.
The first verse finds Robyn in a contemplative mood, it is undoubtedly a softer, more vulnerable side to Robyn's vocal talents that we have not seen on record before and plays out over a restrained acoustic sound.
"Taking a trip - down memory lane
Back when you said that you wouldn't - cause me pain"
It has to be said that this song does at times come with some idiosyncratic phrasing, gaps appear when perhaps you were not expecting them, while at other times, like in this next section words need to be shoehorned in at pace to make the line work
"Now I'm sitting here, all on my own
Trying to count how many broken pieces of me you own
But I don't ever want to know
I'm better without you - standing on my own"
It is the sassy last line that is the key take away
The chorus sees the band full kick in, the gaelic fiddle and mandolin inform the listener about Robyn's celtic roots, and they mix perfectly with a powerful organ and percussion sound. There is a certain defiant swagger from the words "for the last time" denoting that this relationship is definitely dead.
"When you said that you were leaving me
I didn't know how to feel - but
When you touched me - for the last time
I knew that we were gone
You could've stretched an ocean
Between the two of us"
The phrase "stretched an ocean" seems doubly clever in this context, because you can have a stretch of water but in this context it emphasises just how far apart they now are.
Given the strength of the opening verse and chorus and their respective closing lines, the second verse is lyrically a little underwhelming, as it doesn't really move things along and seems to get itself tied up in a race analogy. It does however close with the same conclusion of the first verse which gets us back on track.
"What would happen if we went back to the start
Of the race would we still finish last?
Would we even finish at all?
Would the line be too far away?
But i don't ever want to know
I'm better without you - standing on my own"
The second chorus allows us to see Robyn in her prime, as this time it is "the two of us" line that gets stretched with a powerful elongated note. The final chorus takes things even further, the first two lines are delivered to a band that has faded into the back of the mix before a run of thumping drum beats brings them roaring back. The elongated note of the title now soars away for even longer incorporating a key change.
There's enough here to certainly whet the appetite for what is to come.