Fever Ray entered electronic music stardom via the Knife: the now-disbanded electropop duo formed with their brother Olof Dreijer. In both their solo and the Knife work, Fever Ray charges dancefloor rhythms with blunt declarations of progressive politics. On ‘Full of Fire’, the ten-minute track off the Knife’s swan song epic Shaking the Habitual, they incorporate a rallying hook, chanting the lines “liberals giving me a nerve itch.” With ‘This Country’ from Fever Ray’s second solo record Plunge, an interlude plays out like manifesto. “Free abortions and clean water! Destroy nuclear!” they holler, before transitioning into a repeated exclamation that “this country makes it hard to fuck”. Plunge was a sweat-drenched rave album, marrying ideology and sexuality. The music was delightfully lurid (“To The Moon and Back” ends with “I want to run my fingers up your pussy” as a sendoff). Everything was upfront, composed with excess as Fever Ray chronicled a new, fortysomething coming-of-age.
Politics and desire (or the politics of desire, perhaps) remain the backbone of Fever Ray’s latest album. In fact, it’s foregrounded in the title: Radical Romantics. Yet Fever Ray’s latest catalogue of sounds is cleaner and less drawn towards the abrasive elements central to some of Plunge’s most inspired moments. Radical Romantics trades its predecessor’s undercurrent of volatile intensity for a full course of infectious earworms and grooves, unraveling with intricate and emotive drum patterns. Many of the tracks—especially the well-selected singles ‘Carbon Dioxide’ and ‘Kandy’—center effortless catchy melodies. The album combines old collaborators (such as Olof Dreijer, who co-produces a number of tracks) with new ones (including Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), ushering in a breezy new chapter in Fever Ray’s body of work.
Though gentler than Plunge, Radical Romantics is still full of indignation. Fever Ray’s anger is most visceral on ‘Even It Out’, a vengeful diss track about their child’s high school bully. It’s a strange song, with punkish deliveries and packed with threats against a teenage bully named Zacharias (the song’s inspiration is non-fictional, though the name is altered). Part of Fever Ray’s charm is their raw, unadorned articulation of rebellious sentiments. The gracelessness of their lyrics is met with contradictorily lush production. Yet Radical Romantics excels when Fever Ray adopts a musical language without words, like the album’s patient and simmering finale ‘Bottom of the Ocean’. The song unfolds with repeated wordless vocalizations over ambient synth textures. Fever Ray’s voice calls out in a series of pleading oh-s. It’s a vocal performance built around one sound yet it feels complete and charged with emotion. This seven-minute conclusion is a perfect encapsulation of Fever Ray’s gift. They’re an artist who uses their voice to its fullest extent.
Fever Ray’s long embraced the re-sculpting potential of formant shifting, welcoming its fluid melding of the human voice into a varied cast of characters. Radical Romantics showcases the dramatic range of Fever Ray’s voice, both before and after digital processing. They feel at home testing the limits of their deliveries. The aggression of ‘Even It Out’ is vastly distinct from the slow, whisperiness of ‘North’ or even the shrill, Grimes-esque interlude on ‘Looking For a Ghost’. The best vocal lines are the most audacious ones. ‘Shiver’ bridges with wailing banshee harmonies which, on paper, should sound grating. Yet Fever Ray is a master of controlled chaos, juggling a full parade of sounds which, in a less precise mix, would feel clumsy and unfocused.
