ABBA the Swedish hitmakers will be releasing a new album of fresh material in November, and digital avatars will be appearing in their London concert residency in 2022.

REVIEW: My review (being a live long fan, I’m bias asf)

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Updated: Saturday 11th September.

A week in listening to the two new tracks from ABBA ‘I Still Have Faith in You’ and ‘Don’t shut me down’. I stand by my review below and I’m more than confident that the forthcoming Voyage album will be as good as these two new hits.

Voyage released on all streaming platforms and vinyl and CD on Friday 5th November. I can’t wait, until then it’s the ABBA back catalog starting with ‘The Visitors’ album. Mike

Review: Saturday 4th September

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My thoughts on the first two new singles ‘I have faith in you’ and ‘Don’t shut me down’ the first is the powerful ballad ABBA are famous for and holds up to their previous hits. Don’t shut me down is more pop. As with ABBA songs are so catchy and easy to sing/hum along to. After 40 years since their last release, the sound of these new tracks holds up. I give them a 10/10. Mike

One of the most hotly anticipated comebacks in pop culture has finally come to pass: The return of Abba.

Four decades after the bittersweet songs authored during the wake of two band divorces for their last album, 1981’s The Visitors, the Swedish pop quartet have reunited for Voyage, an album of brand new songs that will be released on 5 November – including, they say, a Christmas song.

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Two tracks from it, the stately and epic ballad I Still Have Faith in You and the shimmying Don’t Shut Me Down, are now available on streaming services today (Friday, 3rd September) and their new album released on 5th November with all new songs.

The group, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus, have also announced a new live concert experience in London, entitled Abba Arena, beginning in May 2022. Digital versions of themselves (not holograms, their team claimed) will appear nightly alongside a 10-piece live band at a new 3,000-capacity venue in the city’s Olympic park.

Lyngstad said of their reunion: “It was a great pleasure to work with the group again – I am very satisfied with what we have made,” and called Andersson and Ulvaeus “exceptionally talented, truly genius songwriters”.

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Agnetha Fältskog of ABBA said of their reunion: “Such joy it is to work with the group once again—I am so happy with what we have made,” and called Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson “exceptionally talented, truly genius songwriters”.

Ulvaeus said of Fältskog and Lyngstad: “I was clearly impressed by the way they delivered those songs,” with Andersson saying: “I think hearing Frida and Agnetha singing again might be difficult to beat.

Abba’s digital avatars were created using motion capture technology, similar to that used by Andy Serkis and others to portray CGI beasts in Hollywood movies: the group was filmed in skintight suits to create the lifelike recreations. Wayne McGregor, resident artist at London’s Royal Ballet, choreographed the band’s performance, and an 850-strong team from George Lucas-founded effects company Industrial Light & Magic designed and animated the de-aged avatars from the footage.

Unlike other pop groups who have been digitally resurrected in recent years, from the Beatles to Kurt Cobain, Abba’s performance was not pieced together from archival footage of film, television appearances and music videos.

ABBA Are Back, New Singles Out Now, New Album Coming

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