MØ, Heaven, London review - snappy, sexy and energised

★★★★ MØ, HEAVEN The Danish pop star plays a tight set to a devoted partisan crowd

Danish pop star plays a tight set to a devoted partisan crowd

“I live to survive another heartache/I live to survive another mistake,” roars a sold-out Heaven. It’s a new song but everyone seems to know it. It’s not MØ’s most famous song but is the bluntest monster banger of the night, crunching four-to-the-floor club-pop that brooks no argument. It’s the last of the set (prior to an encore) and MØ is now a perspiring ball of energy.

Album: MØ - Motordrome

Scandi-pop mainstay adds a dash of indie despondence to her third album

Danish pop star MØ is as well known for her collaborations as her own music. Shining brighter than all of them is the globe-slaying, 24 carat dance craze "Lean On” from 2015, created with Major Lazer and DJ Snake, and, for a few years, Spotify’s most-streamed song.

DVD/Blu-ray: Another Round

★★★★★ DVD/BLU-RAY: ANOTHER ROUND Thomas Vinterberg's superbly ambivalent drama about drinking in Denmark

Thomas Vinterberg's superbly ambivalent drama about drinking in Denmark

Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen left me dumbstruck in the cinema in 1998 with its brilliant depiction of an incestuous, viciously glamorous family imploding over a family celebration. At the time, I hoped that my Danish mother never saw what looked, to all intents and purposes, like a home movie about her former life in Copenhagen. 

Album: Efterklang - Windflowers

The Danish art-poppers balance the tension between reserve and forthrightness

Although Windflowers showcases Efterklang at their most direct, its sixth track “Living Other Lives” is its most instant, most straightforward composition. However, the Danish art-poppers’ sixth studio album does not instantly makes its case as a full-bore adoption of up-front dynamics.

Shorta review - Danish police drama

First-time film-makers' ambitious tale of police trapped in the ghetto

This Danish police drama attempts to tackle the country’s uneasy relationship with the immigrants it’s allowed into its cities over the last 30 years. The result is a somewhat clumsy attempt at fusing social commentary with the visceral thrills of an action movie, complete with car chases, shoot outs and muscle-bound fistfights.

Riders of Justice review - revenge, coincidence and the meaning of life

★★★★ RIDERS OF JUSTICE Anders Thomas Jensen directs Mads Mikkelsen in brilliantly genre-busting black comedy

Anders Thomas Jensen directs Mads Mikkelsen in brilliantly genre-busting black comedy

All events are products of a series of preceding events. Or is life just a chain of coincidences? And if so, what’s the point in anything?

Into the Darkness review - disappointingly soapy Danish WWII drama

Life during wartime among the affluent Danes requires less hygge, more hubris

Can a film be both too long and too short? If so, Into the Darkness definitely fits the bill. Anders Refn’s long-nurtured family epic follows Karl Skov (Jesper Christensen, more famous as a Bond villain), a self-made Danish industrialist who struggles with his conscience when his country surrenders to Germany in 1940.

Albums of the Year 2020: Marius Neset – Tributes

★★★★★ ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2020: MARIUS NESET - TRIBUTES The Norwegian saxophonist finds reasons to be cheerful

The Norwegian saxophonist finds reasons to be cheerful

This year of all years – surely – we need music which takes us to better, happier places. And the new album from Norwegian-born saxophonist/composer Marius Neset does that. It also gives us a bit more hindsight and context as to what his two previous albums involving large ensembles were all about.

Another Round review - delight and despair

★★★ ANOTHER ROUND Delight and despair

Mads Mikkelsen stars in Thomas Vinterberg’s alcohol-fumed tragicomedy

You can practically smell the fumes coming off Thomas Vinterbergs latest drama Another Round, known in Denmark simply as "Druk". Co-written with Tobias Lindholm, the story is anchored in a theory proposed by Finn Skårderud that humans have a blood alcohol level that is 0.05 percent too low. Therefore, to function at our best, we need to top it up.