I've been following Fever Ray since 2009, when I was visiting my friend Joseph in LA and the first single dropped the day I drove to his place. I hadn't heard anything about it when he mentioned it and then we listened to If I Had a Heart. It was a weirdly foggy night in LA, so that combined with the menacing tones and that haunting voice. Man, it still sticks in my head after all these years. I ended up seeing Fever Ray on that tour. The stage was dimly lit, the fog machine got a workout and laser lights illuminated that fog hovering over the crowd. It was like a 21st century exorcism or a demon-summoning. Very moody. Great songs, great show.
8 years later, the second Fever Ray album, Plunge, arrived. If that first album was dark and sinister, Plunge was pretty much the opposite. Just a coming out party celebrating all the shapes and forms of queerness. I saw them twice on that tour. And now it's 6 years later and we have Radical Romantics, which seems to be a continuation of Plunge. It's very good, I just love how different and daring Karin Dreijer is, they really take their art to another level. Even back with The Knife, they were doing something not many others could replicate. Very much worth a listen.