The debut album from Copenhagen-based Norwegian duo Smerz follows two EPs of warped art-pop which intertwined abstract R&B with fractured club music. Not quite as house-influenced as Okey or as gritty and distorted as Have Fun, the full-length Believer is a major expansion of Smerz's sound, with much more open, spacious arrangements and an almost symphonic sense of pacing. On early standout "Max," the duo place stark, yearning vocals in front of detached synths, breaking for a few bombastic melodic swells. The wobbly, uneasy "Believer" is Shygirl-esque industrial hip-hop that unexpectedly blossoms with chamber music string arrangements, which shine brighter on the airier, more bump-and-grindy "Rain." "Hester" is one of the album's more heart-racing tracks, with gated trance arpeggios underpinned by tumbling drum'n'bass breakbeats, suddenly stopping dead in front of a lonesome spiral of strings. "I don't talk about that much" similarly weds tense arpeggios to jittery beats, this time adding confessional, anxiety-riddled lyrics, resulting in one of the album's most gripping tracks. While the high points are compelling and undeniably unique, unfortunately there are simply far too many meandering interludes that don't add up to much, and don't really enhance the album's erratic flow. The operatic tone poem "The favourite" is lovely and worth revisiting, but the curdled, wavy synth of "Missy" would've sounded better in the context of a more fully developed piece instead of just running on loop for a minute, and the string-based "Hva hvis" walks a paper-thin line between serene and grating. It's hard to tell what Smerz are going for on this perplexing mess of an album, but there's clearly a lot of potential to their ambitious fusion of modern classical, R&B, and experimental club styles -- they just haven't made their vision clear yet.