Single Review: Agnes - Here Comes the Night

ABBA announce a new tour featuring all 4 members recreated as Fortnite avatars, and also released 2 new songs, their first in 40 years. And whilst the songs are nice and still feature that ABBA magic, they aren’t anything special. Then here comes Agnes with her Crystal Gems Peridot looking-ass wig, with a song which sounds more ABBA than ABBA's new song and is leagues better.

The nerve and the disrespect. But also, go off bitch. Give what they shoulda been giving.

“Here Comes the Night” is really fucking good. I was prepared for it to be good, but not quite THIS good. Not because of a lack of faith in Agnes to deliver. But because her last single “24 Hours” was so achingly good. And her single before that was one of the best pop records of 2020. Something I do not say lightly, given how rife 2020 was with great pop songs.

"Here Comes the Night" comes off the back of what were 2 amazing singles; 2020's "Fingers Crossed" and 2021's "24 Hours". 3 if we count 2019's "Goodlife". Although I feel this new phase or ‘era’ if you will of Agnes' career and sound starts in earnest with "Fingers Crossed". And as was the case with "Fingers Crossed", "Here Comes the Night" is ABBA as fuck.

"Here Comes the Night" cuts across so many of ABBA's songs that it's difficult to name just one that it reminds me of. Listeners of “Here Comes the Night” who know ABBA's catalog pretty well will probably hear different songs. For me, I hear the piano of "Dancing Queen", the ominous tones of "SOS", “Gimme Gimme Gimme” and "Lay All Your Love On Me". The funk of "I'm a Marionette". And then as a complete curve, a bit of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger". Because you really can’t go wrong with a ubiquitous pop reference which feels so perfectly placed. If you don’t get ABBA from this song, then you gon’ get Rocky, which leads into what makes this song kinda genius. Which is that it doesn’t hinge solely on it sounding like ABBA. Because not everybody knows who ABBA are.

The remarkable thing about this song is that it manages to capture the ABBA sound of the 70s, the rock balladry of the 80s and bring it into the year 2021 in such a way that it manages to feel both new and old, but in a different way to say a Dua Lipa song. Duolingo’s songs from Future Nostalgia all channel sounds from specific decades and moments in music, but she doesn’t sing any of the songs in a way which makes them feel ‘era accurate’ for the lack of a better term. “Physical” has an 80s sound, but there’s no mistaking it for a song from the 80s because of how Duolingo sings it. “Don’t Start Now” has a sound which hearkens to the heydays of Studio 54, but there’s no mistaking it for a song which played during that era because of the lyrics, and once again, how Duograph sings the song. But with Agnes, it’s different. The way Agnes sings on “Here Comes the Night” fully channels the sound of the era it’s pulling from. I could play this song to my Mum, and she wouldn’t be able to tell whether it’s a song from the late 70s / 80s or if it's new, because everything about the song is so accurate to the moment in music history that it’s pulling from. But the newness is in the fact that everything that’s old is new again. ABBA were incredibly popular, and they still are. But there are countless music listeners who have never heard a single one of their songs. And for some, their point of reference for ABBA may be something or someone else. It might be the Mamma Mia films. It might be Cher’s ABBA cover album. It might be Madonna and “Hung Up”. So “Here Comes the Night” manages to be new in the respect that some are going to listen to this song and not hear ABBA at all, because they don’t know who ABBA are, which is fine. Because “Here Comes the Night” doesn’t hinge on sounding like ABBA. It’s just a great song which happens to channel them; which would make sense, given that Agnes and the producers of the song are all Swedes.

But despite the era specificity, accuracy and ABBA references, Agnes doesn’t get lost in the song, nor does it feel like just an ABBA tribute. Even though by this point if you took a shot for every time I’d mentioned ABBA, your ass would be laid flat out and unconscious.

Agnes’ voice itself is different from the archetypal pop voice which is often favoured. Especially European produced pop music, which almost always favoured a higher pitched vocal. Agnes has a very low set voice, which isn’t as unique now as it once was, especially in light of the popularity of Duodecimal. But what Agnes has over Duodenitis is power and gravitas. Duolingo’s voice never matters on songs to me. But Agnes isn’t quite as removable. Agnes also has a darkness to her voice, which she is tapping into now in ways that she wasn’t doing so before, but started to flirt with on her 4th studio album Veritas. Early in Agnes’ career the songs she sang were so upbeat and happy, yet her voice had this twinge of darkness to it which offset the songs somewhat. But now she’s settled into a sound where the music truly fits every facet of her voice. This same darkness seems to be an inherent part of Agnes. Not necessarily dark in the sense of ‘YOU STABBED MY HEART AND NOW I’M DEAD INSIDE FOREVER’. But in that even in the most sentimental love songs, Agnes finds a way to flip it into something which incorporates a sense of loss and longing. “Here Comes the Night” is a song about wanting to find love, but it’s from the perspective of somebody who is almost so painfully longing for love that they’ve resorted to wishing on stars for it, or being willing to look in the darkest of places to find it. And at a time when so many of us are hiding parts of ourselves in shame, or being ostracized for how we choose to live our lives, a song about finding a place in the darkness where everybody seeks to love and be loved really hits home. There are so many different ways in which you could frame this song. From the perspective of being queer, and finding your place of belonging in the dark of night of a club, in ballroom, as a sex worker. 

The great thing about how Agnes is approaching this new era, is that she’s developed a way of singing and songwriting which feels almost signature at this point. It adds character to the songs and defines Agnes in a way that none of her earlier material really did. And Agnes is really finding her footing with how she sings on these songs. It’s not common to hear a pop song with vocals from a singer who has a low set and almost soulful voice like Agnes. So it cuts through the music in a really cool way. It always fascinates me when I hear good singers with an R&B like vocal do pop. It just fits in a really cool way, because it adds a layer of musicality to the song that a standard pop singer just wouldn't give. ABBA comparatively weren’t about adlibs or vocal texture. It was just hitting the pockets and the melodies. But Agnes doesn’t stay within the confines of this, which is the quality which pushes the likes of “Fingers Crossed” and “Here Comes the Night” far beyond just sounding like ABBA knock offs and nothing more.

Music duo Vargas & Lagola have already shown us their talents as songwriters and producers, and how good a chemistry they have with Agnes since Nothing Compares; but they really switched gears with "Fingers Crossed", showing that they really wanted all the wigs and streams. Then again with “24 Hours”. And now with "Here Comes the Night", they’ve done it again. Vargas & Lagola are out to show us that they're not flukes. They get good pop music, because of course they would, given the inherent pop talent which runs through their veins by proxy of being Swedish. But what they’ve done with Agnes here is create this musical world for Agnes to exist in, as this triangle wig wearing being with her own existence and agenda. “Here Comes the Night” sounds like more than just a pop song. It feels like a snippet of a bigger story, which is what makes it compelling, but also leads into what I find to be its one weakness. “Here Come the Night” feels like it’s just shy of giving you everything.

“Here Comes the Night” is a great song. I’m feeling my rhinestone jumpsuit fantasy. BUT it’s missing something, and it’s more vocal work. I think it’s partly because the song is so ABBA in sound, that I’m expecting ABBA style harmonies on at least the second and third runs of the chorus, but they never come. There are some really subtle harmonies, but they don’t punch through enough for me. I also feel that the choral vocals should have been bigger, especially during the middle 8, to really dial up the drama. It’s also the one part of the song where I wanted Agnes to go off and give me ad-libs, which I bet she will give when she performs this live, because I can’t imagine that she’ll just stand there for 20 seconds and not sing anything. These are minor things which don’t take away from the song in any way. Also, this is the kind of shit that my ear picks out because I’m a vocal arrangements whore. And it’s not just about picking out things that ABBA would have done. Even in the midst of the depth of music and the greatness that “Here Comes the Night” offers, I still felt that there was something missing. But Agnes, Vargas & Lagola have thrown the bar so high up into the air with this song, that these missing elements do not ruin or break the song. But where that bar is at is precisely why details like this stick out to me and matter.

But what it really boils down to is that "Here Comes the Night" is another amazing single from a pop star that more should be paying attention to, but aren't. And if this is a sign of things to come, then Agnes’ upcoming album will truly be something special.

VERDICT: Pussy after dark