The first time I had heard Lykke Li, I heard an artist I would almost immediately write off as another Scandinavian indie-pop sensation, destined to either fade out crushed by it’s own catchy cuteness (see Annie) or grow to gargantuan dance-pop proportion (see Robyn). But critical acclaim and a quirky acoustic performance with folk darlings Bon Iver would invite me to pay closer attention and before long, Youth Novel came to occupy a special place in my musical library.
But Youth Novel was still a “nice” album, one that could call to dance and love but even it’s most dreary moments, seemed polite. Wounded Rhymes is bigger and meaner right out of the gate. Opening with the same booming saturated drums that made “Get Some” such an exiting preview a few months back, it’s clear that Lykke Li is trying to distance herself from the image that Youth Novel imposed, trading in the bubblegum for a lit cigarette in a dark alley.
Bjorn Yttling returns to man the ship once again but it feels less like an influence this time, Lykke Li’s bleak lyrics occupying a much greater place in the cavernous air between pounding percussion. Still, almost throughout the record, everything echoes and cracks and calls for attention.
While Youth Novel was a brilliant pop record, Wounded Rhymes is more of an album and it feels like one. From standout tracks like the driving “Youth Knows No Pain” and centerpiece “Get Some” to the more dramatic “Rich Kids Blues” and “I follow Rivers” with it’s pitter-patter percussion, Lykke Li rarely slows down from what feels like a relentless attack but when she does, the results are crushing. “I Know Places” is the kind of track you want to go to at 4 in the morning if you’re a heart-broken masochist and “Love Out Of Lust”‘s painful lyrics almost over shadow the ambiguously hopeful whistled chorus.
Lykke Li did an amazing job leading up to the release of Wounded Rhymes, offering up three tracks with videos for two of them as well as some b-sides before the album came out. In January she also put up an “Untitled” video on her YouTube page, the film is a three and a half minute slow ambient clip of Li stabbing at the ground with knives. At the time it seemed little more than odd but after a couple listens, this is what Wounded Rhymes is really about. Lykke Li is at war with the intangible, the invisible. Lykke Li is at war with love itself and from the sound of it, she’s winning.
by Gabriel Rousseau
