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As unlikely a step as Fever Ray may seem for one of electronic music's most enigmatic figures, the results are triumphant.
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Her eponymous debut as Fever Ray is countless times more claustrophobic and creepy than "Silent Shout."
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Nothing that Fever Ray does is as immediate or soaring as a track like 'Marble House' but Fever Ray makes up for the lack of highs by being an even more all-enveloping experience than the last few Knife records.
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It may not be as enigmatic as Silent Shout but if nothing else, it is a fantastic album on its own accord.
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FilterEven when you can't quite understand what she's on about, you are happily lured into a world where classic myth yearns for modern ritual, and you're quite happy to be in a place nobody will quite understand. [Winter 2009, p.106]
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The album moves at roughly the same pace and with the same general tone, rendering some of the songs indistinguishable at first, but committed listens will reveal this to be as nuanced and as rich of a production as anything either Dreijer has done.
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This is an odd gem of a record that should be cherished in a class of its own.
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MojoIt's captivating stuff, with the gnomic lyrics adding to the implied oppostion between the natural world and the machines used to make the record. [Apr 2009, p.108]
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Juxtaposing foley noises, drum loops, and auxiliary click-clacking against minimalist, percussive synth lines and enormous swells of energy, the album clearly has a sonic template and a cohesion easily identifiable within the first three tracks.
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Each of these stylistic decisions work equally well, and what impresses most about Fever Ray is that none of the choices are obvious.
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Fluency aside, with the first in what is hopefully a long line of releases, Fever Ray knocks down more walls than it puts up.
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With almost tangible textures and a striking mood of isolation and singularity, Fever Ray is a truly strange but riveting album.
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Who knows what Knife-man Olof Dreijer will bring back from his (literal) exploration of the Amazon, intended for an electronic opera about "The Origin of Species" (due September 2009); for now, this may be his sister’s most artistically satisfying album.
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It’s this feverishness that’s key to this magnetic and rewarding album.
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Karin Dreijer Andersson would probably make for a fascinating interview but her reluctance to talk about her music is a blessing. There's simply no way she'll ever live up to these sounds.
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Q MagazineIf you ever wondered how Bjork would sound if she was caught in a snowdrift, here's your answer. [May 2009, p.112]
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Under The RadarFever Ray dips into the uncanny valley from time to time, enough to be terrifying, but Andersson lends a more human touch to the album. [Spring 2009, p.71]
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Even amidst amazing production by her friends Christoffer Berg and Van Rivers & the Subliminal Kid, the minimally arranged Fever Ray is best swallowed when Andersson distorts her vocal effects.
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In lieu of an actual follow-up [to The Knife's "Silent Shout"] we get something that manages to make good on two of those three elements [of the decade’s best electronic records]. I’ll take it.
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She’s at her best when sticking to a palette of steel, indigo and black.
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Unyielding in its murkiness, but all the while strangely accessible, it is a generous full-bodied offering handed to us by these otherwise blurred figures.
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Karin from The Knife makes desolate but inspiring dance record.
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Spare and quirky, like a dub remix of some forgotten 1980s Top 40 hit, it slowly, repeatedly builds to a swooping chorus all the more melodious for its relative rarity.
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Alternative PressFever Ray is most reminiscent of the Knife self-titled debut--which means it's merely fantastic rather than transcendent. [May 2009, p.114]
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Andersson’s lyrics are often tricky to make out--can she really be singing, “We talk about love/We talk about dishwasher tablets”?—but almost every song incorporates shrewd production details, like the clog-dance percussion that kicks 'I’m Not Done' forward.
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Her solo debut slightly tones down the Knife's electro innovation but turns up the creepy affect, making lyrically tender tracks like 'Concrete Walls' and hallucinatory sketches like 'When I Grow Up' into reverse Rorschachs.
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UncutThis is an exercise in extravagant claustrophobia, not nostagia. [Apr 2009, p.86]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 94 out of 102
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Mixed: 2 out of 102
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Negative: 6 out of 102
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Nov 22, 2010Absolutely fantastic.
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FearghalL.Jan 4, 2010Album of the year by a long way and one of the albums of the decade absolutely brilliant.
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Aug 4, 2019