Long after her megaviral “Habits (Stay High)”, the visual tour de force of “Glad He’s Gone”, and a string of other musical successes… and after wading through the downsides of major labels, Tove Lo continues her independent career with “Estrus”, her third album. Following “Dirt Femme”, which yielded the surprising streaming hit “No One Dies From Love”, and the SG Lewis collaboration EP, “Heat”, she now arrives bearing darkness. And she does so with a short, direct record, more solid than some of its singles had promised.
Tove Lo explains that “estrus” is the state of an animal in heat: “something primal, contradictory, in which mind and body want different things.” The definition fits quite well with her usual stories of emotional turmoil: she’s desperate for love, she heads solo to the club to dance and cry, and she acknowledges that she remains destructive and even lies in therapy. All of that appears in “I’m Your Girl Right?”, “F.A.M.T.” and “If I Could I Would”, respectively.
Given that Tove Lo isn’t exactly the most visible pop star these days, it’s a bit hard to swallow when she sings she’s “the most problematic woman in the world.” Here, at least, she leans into playing the villain in the relationship rather than the victim, and in “The Bad One” she even seems to relish it. The problem is that this jumble of insecurities, toxic relationships and self-destruction isn’t the deepest. The lyrics, rather than provocative, come across as somewhat juvenile.
Not to mention cringe rhymes like “Babe, I’m a popstar, did you just forget? / Open my legs and I’ll show you Sweden” don’t help elevate a musical proposition that convinces only halfway. “Estrus” offers fairly minimalist, elegant, and dark electronic pop, with house, darkwave, post-punk, new wave and some urban or half-Latin touches adding variety. There are cool things in the production and some pretty melodies, but nothing stands out too much.
Perhaps the industrial tracks are the most uneven. “F.A.M.T.” sounds too much like t.A.T.u.’s “Obezyanka Nol”, and the hammering repetition of “I’m the Cake” and “Idiot” doesn’t quite shine. By contrast, “The Bad One” has a very accomplished dramatic melody, “Die for My Art with a Lonely Heart” recovers her darker electropop vein, and “Are We on a Break” is one of the best moments on the record. Also work well are “Roomie”, with its late-nineties house vibe, and “Source of Life”, with echoes of post-punk and new wave. “Des Fleurs” with Stromae brings another of the prettiest melodies and “If I Could I Would” is probably the most immediate, though it resembles Charli XCX’s “SS26” too closely.
“Estrus” is again a good Tove Lo album, a short and easy-to-listen-to work from start to finish. Tove Lo still knows how to craft pop melodies and here she finds a dark sound that suits her. The songs would have benefited from more interesting twists and the lyrics do not show the same refined taste as the production. The contrast may be deliberate. In any case, there are more hits than misses here. Tove Lo’s chaos seems more like an aesthetic than a real message, but this time she does not need more to deliver an enjoyable album.
