I dreamed of an album until I realized I wasn’t dreaming.
“Smerz”, the band name, is a non-word derived from the German herzschmerz for heartbreak. Big city life is their latest, released last month on Escho, and was written, performed and produced by Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt who are Smerz. The duo split their time between Oslo, Norway, and Copenhagen, Denmark so a nonsensical German non-word as band name makes perfect sense.
I’ve been a Smerz fan since their 2018 self-titled EP and the 2021 full-length Believer along with every EP in between. But Big city life strikes me a big leap forward, as if all of their scattered references have joined forces more fully formed while keeping that magical Smerz diversity in sound and song-form.
Big city life is a big, bouncy, deliciously delightful smoldering sexy treat for the mind/body with smile, fun, and funk factors well off the charts.