Fever Ray – Radical Romantics

Sister Karin and brother Olaf Dreijer are known worldwide since they formed the powerful electro duo The Knife, for almost a quarter of a century. We then remember the solo project Fever Ray of the great Swedish female producer, homonymous album released in 2009 and whose material had literally exploded on stage at that time. The mutant character of Fever Ray was then withdrawn from trafic to reappear much later, in 2017 with the album Plunge and a proposal expanded and revealing real progress. Following a second and long hiatus, Radical Romantics was released in 2023. This album is well received in a general way but the buzz about it is not exactly what it used to be. We are dealing with the same intense synth-pop / IDM / electro-pop, a little technoid, sometimes inclined to a certain roughness of rock spirit, either by the use of the saturation of synthetic frequencies or by a robustness in the rhythm. Radical Romantics carries well its title because the path of Fever Ray is to cross the whole spectrum of the states related to love: passion, desire, sex, pleasure, pain, rupture, loss, betrayal, exploitation. Fever Ray’s quest remains noble and rich, staying on the same road, keeping the course with the intensity and creativity necessary for the character’s life. That being said, we are not overwhelmend when listening to this rigorously built album, but it reveals few new details about the singer, songwriter and electro producer. In fact, you have to be a super fan to be super fulfilled.

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