Fever Ray: Radical Romantics (bandcamp)

Given we've listened to a fair bit of the dark but poppy electronica by Sweden's Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer) -- one half of The Knife and now close to 50-- it surprises us they/them (was married, has two daughters, identifies as gender fluid) hasn't appeared at Elsewhere before.

That said, they've hardly been prolific under the Fever Ray moniker: their self-titled debut was in 2009, the second Plunge in 2017 and this is only their third.

The Knife has kept them busy and there have been live and remix albums.

But we come to them at a strong point with this album produced by, among others, Ray and brother Olof of The Knife, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The theme of love and its many problems is evident throughout, but let's start with the sound of the album which is sophisticated, layered electronica with clear pop sensibilities (the catchy Kandy with “she laid me down and whispered, all girls want kandy”, the more demanding Even It Out) and at times they can evoke Bjork – with whom they collaborated -- but much more single focus and restrained.

And maybe even early solo Peter Gabriel (in the beats), Kate Bush if she'd grown up on atmospheric electronica and late-period Yoko (the hook-filled Looking For a Ghost, the jerky Carbon Dioxide).

In many ways in its songcraft this is quite a traditional album (one writer even referencing K-pop, which frankly we don't hear) but what makes it distinctive is a sense of urgent claustrophobia in places (the whispery North) and the candour in her lyrics.

She addresses the problems of her chosen pronouns (What They Call Us) and in Shiver the caution required in love: “Some girls you wanna thrust, some girls you wanna see shiver. I just wanna be touched, I just wanna shiver. Can I trust . . . you?”.

Here too sex and music – universal concerns – merge in North: “I'm calling sex
North. It's a way to pass time forward . . . A map of words. It's a way to pass sex forward. Like a way to thrive”.

Bottom of the Ocean at the end is a quasi-ambient vocal piece in the manner of a lightweight Meredith Monk.

So there's a lot going on with Radical Romantics but much less anxiety and anger than her previous album, and Fever Ray -- here identifying as Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror on the cover? -- packages up their many concerns in electronica-grounded music which is very appealing . . . but still provocative.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here