There’s a temptation to laud something that sounds different than 98% of what’s out there and to pan anything that doesn’t distinguish itself from the pack. There’s also the unwritten rule of thumb that suggests that if it invites comparisons to great work of the past in a favorable manner, it too must be great. Finally, there’s the tricky maneuver where an album needs cohesion and unity but if everything sounds the same, the artist lacks a dynamic sound and is wanting of ideas. I mention this because Fever Ray defies this logic and excels on its own terms. There’s little variety in the songs until multiple listens open up the scope and yet you sense a tonal shift that clashes with necessities of fusion. On top of that, it evokes a flood of memories of past recordings and yet nothing else quite sounds like this.
A lot of those memories tend to gravitate towards the Knife, not surprisingly, the Swedish electronic duo that has begged of obsession despite a prickly nature and has risen to the top of beguiling names in the genre. Fever Ray is the alias of the Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, and while her adopted persona striking off for a solo LP doesn’t verify concerns that the pair are done working in tandem, it certainly doesn’t refute them either. It’s worthless to try and decipher what each member brought to the collaboration since, as siblings who take their stands together, Karin and Olof are clearly of similar minds. But if one must make a distinction between Fever Ray and the Knife, the latter was more bass heavy, club-friendly and yet more anti-commercial. Andersson actually allowed journalists to interview her leading to the Fever Ray release (though she remained cryptic and aloof in doing so), but Fever Ray will only appeal to the masses that scorn the derelict stigma of “house” music and wish that the Knife was more gothic. Which is not to say that the Knife fell into that more commonplace category in the least, but this one ventures even further from the norm.
Chilly and creepy, the synths tend to be glacial in tempo and temperature, awash in an intangible dread that’s appropriate for the grim color and art of the cover. There are stabs, chimes and bleeps circulating the mix, but they’re like bubbles popping out of tar, and while providing a contrast to the barren atmosphere, don’t inspire a move towards the dancefloor. Beginning with the vacant and dolorous opening number, one senses oily menace, but the electronics prove to be organic and before long the beats start stamping incessantly. Notes drip, strums echo and the raven-black pools whirl and slosh beneath a barely buried rhythm sustenance. It’s electronic music meant for headphones, not dancehalls.
But it’s not a drag, nor is it prevailingly scary or bleak. And even if the drum machines and wobbling synth percolations don’t aim for heavy and stressed beats, they frequently scratch and weave an indelible texture over the gloomy soundscapes. The overwhelming theme points towards sleeplessness, lost dreams and general fatigue battling malaise, which inhibits emotional response no matter how much her heart begs to release it. But even as the instruments reach for the icy black or rattle steadily beneath an anxious pulse, she remains unbreakably calm—never detached, but the anxiety shows only in the words.
The affair isn’t entirely murky, though. Emphasizing the norm, “Concrete Walls” and “If I Had a Heart” sink in pits of reverb, the former tribal and the latter goth, and the voice gurgles in the mire no matter the complicated arrangement of the lyrics. But “Triangle Walks” is warmer, with a motif that bends between tropical and oriental, but it arises from fevered desperation: “The night was so long/The day even longer/Lay down for a while/Recollect.” So is “Seven,” where Andersson fondly recalls a “friend who I’ve known since I was seven.” Nevertheless, these moments are fleeting; even on the latter song, the chill of solitude creeps in even as the rhythm grows in density around her. One of the few times that it becomes bothersome is when we hear the sound of pan flutes on “Keep the Streets Empty for Me”—a little too old-world-trilling, especially towards the end of the album after the mood has been securely set. A different manner of leavening might have succeeded better. As it stands, the bleak tone causes the forty-eight minute whole to feel longer and more exhausting than it needs to be, but it’s tougher to determine editing points than it is to endure the whole thing.
Andersson’s vocals are immediately recognizable from her work in the Knife. Lurching from an asexual baritone sigh to a spectral Bjork-ish chirp, the enigmatic changes fit the dramatic mood. She sounds like she chugs poison and dribbles bile, but if black-winged angels could have fangs and be called ethereal all the same, so she would be. She’s not inherently a creature of darkness, and her voice cracks very humanly, but she sounds haunted, forlorn, begging for dreams to return. It’s never easy to pinpoint her precise range since many of the vocal effects are treated by computers, but they integrate into the mysterious scheme; not because they sound mechanical, but because they fittingly sound restless and incapable.
Written around the time of the birth of Andersson’s second child, it’s no surprise that several of these songs seem born out of sleep-deprivation and yawning pleading. Referencing “Dangling feet from window frame” and “In my arms she was so warm” points towards the infant as inspiration, but while there’s no disconnect between mother and child, it’s clear that Andersson sees out of her own eyes and then the baby’s, not from the eyes of an observer noticing the two together. While the accompaniment is plain to see, there’s a loneliness in seeing only from that perspective. You’re not alone, but you see only one, and despite the bond of love and devotion, the selfless demands of the other carve and slice the well-being of the other. There’s joy on Fever Ray, but far more often than not, the recreation of those senses are drowned, which is precisely why it leaves a stain.
"Fever Ray" is on sale March 24, 2009 from Mute / Rapid.
