Released: September 1
A decade after finding international success with their dance-pop anthem, I Love It (feat. Charli XCX), Swedish duo Icona Pop return with their long-awaited second album.
The club-ready collection clocks in at 15 tracks and boasts eight singles from the past three years, from 2020’s Feels In My Body up to their most recent release, Desire with Joel Corry and Rain Radio, along with the epic Galantis collaboration, I Want You, andYou’re Free with the legendary Ultra Naté.
All similarly euphoric, the LP came about during a period of downtime for Icona Pop and was born of a hunger to get back on the dance floor and live life to the full.
“As Icona Pop, we can release a pop tune or a super hard dance song, and that’s who we are,” says Caroline Hjelt. “When we started to write this album, we didn’t have any rules. We just had a vision we wanted to share with our fans. We’re inviting them into our world.”
Aino Jawo adds: “We put all of our problems and stress into what we’re doing. We love disguising our heartbreaks and sadness in uplifting songs you can dance to. It was a very emotional process, and it’s all in the music.”
Opener Fall In Love captures the spark of love at first sight and ignites an explosion of dance floor beats that characterise ‘Club Romantech’, from the pulsing Make Your Mind Up Babe to house influences that backdrop Loving You Ain’t Easy and Ibiza vibes on Feels In My Body.
A more mature club direction than the brash pop they’re known for, its a record that doesn’t veer too far from its central sound, although Stockholm At Night – an atmospheric anthem documenting a night out on the town and capturing the wonder of the Swedish capital – brings to the fore a soundscape that Icona Pop could and should explore further in the future.
Closing with Spa Song – the Sofi Tukker collaboration that harks back to the album’s origins, when Caroline and Aino held virtual ‘rave spa’ sessions on Instagram Live during the pandemic – it’s a full circle moment and a reminder of the circumstances that brought the duo back into the studio together, with the result a fireball of energy built up over the past decade.