Writing about love is never easy. Not only do several different sorts of love exist, but people can express that love in so many ways. You can also love someone else in multiple ways across a range of expressions, often depending upon your mood, their mood, and a host of overlapping factors. From sonnets, poems, and songs to intrapersonal and international acts of violence, it’s no wonder that love is easily the most powerful of all emotions.
Thus, it takes a special sort of artist to embrace the multifaceted nature of love, much less crack it open to investigate its nebulous nooks and crannies. Yet, that’s exactly what Fever Ray has done on Radical Romantics. Released on Rabid Records, this 10-song album overflows with bristling, creeping avant-pop. Yes, it’s aesthetically similar to everything Karin Dreijer has created throughout their career, including 2017’s Plunge. But this is the most immediately accessible record they’ve ever made, including The Knife, their project with their brother, Olof.
Heavy electronic textures dominate the project, but not in the way you might expect.
For all of the dense industrial elements assembled for these tunes, Dreijer tempers those sharp edges with a sensitive core that charms and challenges the listener. The vocals sit higher up in the mix, even as they’re frequently pitch-bent into whatever permutation best meets the needs of each song.
Bombastic drums rumble and clatter around almost to the point of distraction. However, you slowly realize that is exactly the point. Every curious polyrhythm has been programmed for a specific part of each track. Even then, the spectral keyboard lines carefully tie everything together. Just when you think the melodic phrases become too random, they achieve a delicious level of counterpoint that would make jazz geeks salivate.
Even with that musical majesty on display, Fever Ray delivers profound lyrics that resonate deeply.
Radical Romantics contains sincere reflections about love from a wide variety of angles and perspectives. Their immediacy and passion cannot and should not be denied. For example, “Shiver” centers around the lines “I just wanna be touched. I just wanna shiver. Can I trust you?” While those sentiments can seem sexually charged, many of us have felt similar thoughts simply from holding hands with a crush – and we should all be able to relate to the fear of having our hearts broken. On “Kandy,” the first verse ends with the proclamation, “I trust you. No answers. Only wood and fire.” What is that but a lover declaring to their partner the utmost level of intimacy, one layered in absolute honesty and the purest elemental connection?
With “Carbon Dioxide,” the album achieves its zenith, as each of the song’s five stanzas contains glorious metaphors about immersive romantic love. But my favorite is easily this incandescent query – “Will you meet me hocus pocus on the other side of hyper-focus?” – as it speaks to the magic and all-encompassing intensity of a burgeoning relationship. The penultimate track, “Tapping Fingers” calls to mind the sensations lovers regularly feel as they anticipate spending quality time together. I deeply connected with the nervous energy expressed in the verse that exclaimed, “You’re soft. I’m in the parking lot ready to pick you up, ready to burst, ready to curse the few hours we’ve got.”
Dreijer sings warmly about love and relationships, while also achingly opining about acceptance and rejection. I’m in awe of the sensual and striking imagery they create. The visuals blur the line between Byron, Eliot, and Ginsberg, especially when used to stand up against societal repression. And most parents would be able to relate to the fierce feelings displayed on “Even It Out” when they angrily lash out at the teenager bullying their child.
Immaculate percussion and synth effects anchor the entirety of Radical Romantics.
Fever Ray possesses this otherworldly sense of when and how to juxtapose musical elements with the subject matter. They delight in crafting subtle builds that defy cliche while knowing exactly how to let the music take over and just groove. I found the melodies, song craft, and beat programming to be absolutely entrancing, right down to the tight loops and heavy syncopation.
The album is industrial without being aggro, propulsive, and dance floor ready without being cheesy. Best of all, nothing ever feels overwhelming. In fact, Dreijer seals the deal by providing a tracklist that ensures tremendous flow, both sonically and thematically.
This is not an album for falling in love. It’s an album that celebrates the idea and practice of love in all its forms.