Fever Ray - "s/t"

For me, Fever Ray came out of nowhere. I caught the video for "If I Had a Heart" on Muzzle of Bees, liked it, and subsequently purchased the rest of the album. I never listened to The Knife, nor did I know that Karin Dreijer Andersson was a member of said group. Turns out, she is Fever Ray, and this is her first solo effort. That's the chronological extent of my experience with this album and its predecessor. But I've listened to it quite a bit since then, so the personal history is at least getting longer, if not richer.

Fever Ray is an electronic-with-ghostly-vocals album, tribal at its innards, yet darkly urban in its appeal. Visually, the grass grows up between the concrete slabs and there's oil in the river. Musically, the beats are poignant and are always placed at the exact point of mood and rhythm. Lyrically, it speaks of some pretty crazy jungle voodoo (like keeping plants moist and setting souls on fire), but the juxtaposition with the music is great. It's like an electronic safari, and you keep pushing back leaves and vines, revealing the next layers of mystery, until you come to the empty streets Andersson is wailing about.