Iconoclasts (2025)

""Iconoclasts" is being trailed as pivot towards pop, which you could say is all relative. It is a long album – it lasts the best part of an hour and a quarter – but it feels crammed with sound. There are heaving synthesised drones, explosions of fizzing noise; cinematic orchestrations; and drum patterns that marry a ritualistic-sounding thunder to rhythms that variously recall the pulse of dance music, the glitterbeat stomp of glam, and even reggae. Von Hausswolff is less inclined to erupt into shrieks and ululations than she once was, but her singing still has a blazing forcefulness that cuts through the echo she is frequently doused in. It’s music that feels as if it’s in constant motion, amplified by the fact that the melodies, rich and beautiful as they are, seldom adhere to any standard verse-chorus structure: the songs here usually end up somewhere very different from the place they started. Indeed, its maximalism might be too overwhelming to take in one long sitting." (The Guardian; 5 uit 5 sterren)