Fever Ray is the NOM-DE-GUERRE of Karin Dreijer, one half of the now-defunct Swedish electropop/electrodance duo the Knife. Between their third studio album Silent Shout (2006) and the collaborative opera Tomorrow, In a Year (2010), the Knife were on hiatus and Dreijer took the opportunity to cobble together and release their own solo material.

Dreijer uses the Fever Ray moniker to present their experience as a genderqueer individual. Like the Knife, there’s a large visual arts presentation to their work that brings to mind old school industrial artists like Throbbing Gristle and, especially, Genesis P-Orridge. Masks, face paint, costumes, often of a terrifying and off-putting nature, are common, although their work is way more introspective and personal and not as deliberately provocative or socially challenging as what you’d expect from a typical early industrial act. I like it!

They’ve only put out two albums since 2009 and both are good. At this rate we’ll get album #3 in 2025! I can’t wait.

Fever Ray’s Bandcamp page

JUMP TO:
(2009) Fever Ray
(2017) Plunge

Fever Ray (2009) – Rating: 7/10
No Full Album Review Yet

It’s hard to judge Fever Ray’s Fever Ray without direct comparisons to the Knife, since the connection is obvious but the projects are so different. While the Knife’s music is bouncy and poppy and playful, Fever Ray’s debut is tentative and serious. It’s clear that this is not dance music anymore, but what is it then? Brightly-colored goth pop? Nautical electro-industrial rock? Yes!

Dreijer builds a new identity around these aquatic synth pulses and the cold, inhuman, pitch-shifted singing, or at least this album is an exercise in attempting to build an identity. It’s like you’re listening to it happen in real-time. There are lots of unique little uncertain, but perfectly placed, bleeps and bloops, metallic scrapings, and echoing bangs and clangs scattered among the dreamy, restrained melodies. It reminds of me Brian Eno’s special electronic touches. A lot of these songs are reminiscent of other turn-of-the-millennium electropop acts like Goldfrapp or Ladytron.

If I have any complaints at all, and this is highlighted further by the release of Plunge, the songs are a little too similar to each other in tone and some melodies aren’t as robust as others. My personal picks for stand-out tracks are “When I Grow Up” and “Seven”, but, while Fever Ray is consistently good, there’s nothing here to get too worked up over. The highs and lows of the album are even-keeled. In short, things get better.

Plunge (2017) – Rating: 9/10
No Full Album Review Yet

My big, fat, shockingly unpopular opinion about Dreijer’s second solo album is that it’s a lot better than the debut. At first I thought it was just the novelty of it being so different from Fever Ray, but as I kept listening to it I realized that these songs are just superior, not different at all really. It’s still the same Fever Ray, it just seems like a more confident permutation. While the debut has their voice mixed behind the music, symbolizing the in-the-moment uneasiness, here it’s shoved to the front, symbolizing a more realized self-acceptance. The whole product is less quiet all around, more authoritative and direct, less dreamy and more angry and frustrated, more overtly sexual and political, and more frightening. Definitely not as shy anymore.

My feelings that the debut has a sort of nautical-industrial vibe is justified further by the second album; with a name like Plunge, plus the sea-blue background of the album cover, all the aquatic connotations are right there. A lot of the same bloopy metallic pipe percussion and dreamy underwater snakey synths are present like before, maybe with sharper edges and more aggressive melodies. My favorite track “Falling” begins with an extended sonic tapestry, with an occasional industrial gong that sounds like PLUNGING, if you will, deep into the abyssal ocean.

The debut had lyrics like “When I grow up/I want to be a forester/Run through the moss on high heels/That’s what I’ll do“, but Plunge has lyrics like “Let’s find out what you are about/What’s hidden in there/What you’ve got for me there“. The debut is all like “this is what I want to be, I think, I don’t know, I hope that’s ok” and the second album is all like “fuck you, this is who I am, deal with it or go fuck yourself”. Of course this is the better album! I hope Dreijer’s next effort gets so goddamned in-my-face that my eyeballs get pushed down my esophagus. Then we’ll have a 10/10 on our hands.