Radical Romantics

Album review

Six years since the last Fever Ray album and two decades since "Heartbeats," the earworm song that made The Knife, the Swedish sibling duo of Karin and Olof Dreijer, a dance-floor hit, Karin Dreijer is back with a provocative treasure trove of carefully considered electro-pop. With producer Johannes Berglund at the helm, Dreijer also opened up the sessions to a host of collaborators. Opener "What They Call Us" is the sound of paranoia: off-kilter time signature, percussion almost like a breathing animal, music like a howling icy wind. One of four songs co-written and produced with Olof, it marks the first time the siblings have publicly joined forces in eight years."Did you hear what they call us?/ Did you hear what they said?/ My plan was flexible/ Don't get stuck anywhere" Dreijer sings, summoning feelings about their own fluidity. "I'm not a binary person," Dreijer told The Guardian. "Being brought up as a girl and not having the words for understanding what you are, it's just something very itchy. And every time you try to break out from that you're being punished in some way." They fantasize about their own form of punishment on the compelling "Even It Out," a goth-punk revenge fantasy complete with haunted house synth and produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. "And we know where you live/ And then we might come after you/ Taking back what's ours/ Then we cut, cut, cut, cut!" they taunt a child's bully in sassy, na-na-na-boo-boo vocals with a slurred, rain-slicked sample of the same lines backing them up. There's a similar cool effect on hypnotic "Shiver," which features a synth part that sounds like a tropical bird; Dreijer mimics it, and it mocks her right back. Portuguese producer and provocateur Nídia, a specialist in batida—the alive, polyrhythmic dance beats from Angola that have been adopted by the Afro-Portuguese DJ community—lends her skills for "Looking For A Ghost," with its snaking melody delivered by Dreijer in a naif Björk-like voice. Reznor and Ross return with their signature industrial chill and contemplative rhythm for "North," as Dreijer brilliantly complements that iciness with a smoky, smooth and sexy turn. The star here is "Carbon Dioxide," a frothing electro-pop clarion call to the dance floor. It's ambitious: Dreijer has said reference points range from the "happiest melody of Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk" to 1 Corinthians 13:1 ("If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal…"). But the effort pays off in an overstuffed bouquet of careening vocals, bubbling beats and a "Woo!" whoop of joy, all done through the gaze of Dreijer's gimlet eye: "Pour yourself out of the sea/ Softest syrup over me/ Sipping a sparkling tumor/ Wish me courage, strength and a sense of humor." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz