The sextet Sliteneliten is a band that has made a name for itself both in rural and urban areas with their self-titled debut album, which sold out in a short time in 2021. Now they are back with the sequel "I can't say no to something that's better".
With poppy power ballads, folk songs with 70s schwung, rocking rock songs and lyrics so densely packed with meaning that the vocalist almost raps, Sliteneliten invites you to dance on the embankment and sing along to demand a six-hour working day, eat the rich, give farmers decent conditions, crush capital , and create a better world with freedom, house and luxury for everyone, not just for the few.
The album is like a musical May Day train, with slogans such as "no to mining dumping in the fjords" and "yes to six-hour working days". But even if "Me kan'kje sei nei te da som e bedere" is a political album, Sliteneliten's textual universe offers much more than proclamatory battle songs. There are also genuine depictions of existential anxiety, faith and doubt.
With a murky comp embellished with transverse flute and fiddle, the thought is quickly sent in the direction of pre-00s bands such as Amtmandens Døtre, Ym-Stammen and Tramteatret. There have also been whispers of The Raincoats in the audience. At the same time, Sliteneliten is not a nostalgic "everything-was-better-before" band. Few Norwegian bands have the same ability to take the pulse of their own time and portray what it's like to manage as a young adult in an age characterized by crises.
As the band themselves say: “How can one change the world? Some ways to make it happen could be to put farmed fish in all fjords in a country and pay minimal tax, secure a place on the invitation list to nice dinners/strategy meetings with ministers and others with a lot of money, or buy a social medium. None of these options are (unfortunately?) within reach of any of the six ladies who play in the band Sliteneliten. What do you do then?
One can, for example, set up the drum set, tune the guitars, the bass, the transverse flute and the fiddle, clear the voice, and scream out in the most beautiful Vossa language about how we should rather get together, all of us who are not stock billionaires or born into positions of power, and together change all for something better.”
Sliteneliten consists of odel girls Synneva Gjelland (guitar, vocals, piano) and Thea Marie Kvam (drums), gardener Silje Strøm (flute), sound designer Ylva Gülpinar (guitar) and students Inga Haugdahl Solberg (fiddle) and Maria Refsland (bass).
https://sliteneliten.bandcamp.com/album/me-kankje-sei-nei-te-da-som-e-bedre