Album Review: ABBA Come Back for Closure With Long-Awaited Reunion Album ‘Voyage’

The Swedish pop group’s first new release in 40 years reflects on the dual divorces that once tore the band apart, but remains dedicated to the bright, bouncy pop of their past.

Written by Audrey Vieira

Photo courtesy of Bailie Walsh

Swedish pop quartet ABBA achieved global success over a rather short period of time, releasing new music almost every year between 1973 and 1981. But with their rapid rise to stardom came rifts within the quartet’s two former couples — vocalist Agnetha Fältskog and guitarist Björn Ulvaeus divorced in 1980, and the marriage between vocalist Anni-Frid Lyngstad and keyboardist Benny Andersson came to an end a year afterwards in 1981. The group’s popularity continued to grow even after the band — and its members’ marriages — dissolved, especially after the opening of “Mamma Mia,'' a jukebox musical based on ABBA’s discography, in 1999. 

Although ABBA did briefly reunite to attend the premiere of the musical’s wildly successful film adaptation in 2008, new music from the group seemed unlikely until 2018, when the band teased two new songs on Instagram. Those two songs, and the rest contained on their newest effort, ultimately faced several delays due to pandemic setbacks, but in 2021, ABBA finally fulfilled their promise with the dual release of co-lead singles “Don’t Shut Me Down” and “I Still Have Faith In You,” followed by their long-awaited ninth studio album Voyage, their first album in 40 years.

Despite the lengthy gap between ABBA’s Voyage and the group’s earlier work, the new songs fit right in with the classics. In fact, the album’s fifth track “Just A Thought,” originally recorded in 1978 as a rejected demo for Voulez-Vous, fits right in with the more recent material despite only the instrumentals having been rerecorded in 2021. The fact that Fältskog and Lyngstad’s 1978 vocals are nearly indistinguishable from their 2021 recordings demonstrates their impressive abilities as singers, as well as how ABBA has remained true to form despite a hiatus of nearly four decades. The recorded instrumentals on “Just A Thought” are also excellent, as Ulvaeus plays a bouncy guitar riff and embraces modern recording technology to create a cleaner, crisper version of ABBA’s timeless pop sound.

In addition to remastering the sounds of their past, ABBA aren’t afraid to revisit the events that contributed to their hiatus, as much of the album’s lyrical content deals with the aftermath of arguments, lovers reuniting, and regrets about the end of a relationship. 40 years after the dual divorces of ABBA’s two one-time couples, there exists little bitterness beneath the songs, but instead plenty of nostalgia and longing about what could have been. One unique example is the album’s seventh track, “Keep an Eye on Dan,” which tells a synthpop-laced story about a divorced parent sharing custody with a former lover for whom they still have lingering feelings. Though ABBA are neither the first nor last group to write about divorce, or even divorce within bandmates for that matter, their ability to turn something as mundane as dropping a child off at his father’s house for the weekend into an infectious power ballad is admirable, especially four decades after the split in question. 

Other standout moments on Voyage, such as the piano ballad “I Can Be That Woman,” and the high-energy argument anthem “No Doubt About It,” also touch on regrets involving past relationships. Fältskog and Lyngstad aren’t afraid to sing about vulnerable subjects or admit wrongdoing, and the acknowledgement of the tensions that originally tore ABBA apart only strengthens the band’s chemistry on their comeback album. “I Can Be That Woman” appears to reference the group’s lengthy hiatus as Fältskog sings, “You can’t believe it, but you’re close to tears / Oh God, I’m sorry for the wasted years.”

Voyage reflects on both the highs and lows of the quartet’s past romantic relationships with one, but remains true to the bright, bouncy pop that defines ABBA.. As a result, it shines not only as a highly anticipated comeback album, but also as the closing chapter to the stories of the two couples who compose the brilliance that is ABBA.