Tove Lo’s ‘Queen Of The Clouds’: Album Review

Kathy Iandoli | September 30, 2014 5:30 am
Swedish songbird Tove Lo has been making waves with her sweetly honest take on uptempo love songs. Her debut album Queen Of The Clouds (out today, ) combines pining, reciprocity, and all of the emotions that fall in between those two opposites as Lo breaks down the ABC’s of romance.The singer’s full length debut is a reasonably long time coming. While she’s written for top-notch domestic and international acts like Icona Pop, Victoria Justice, Girls Aloud, Lea Michele, Cher Lloyd and others, Tove likely found that piecing together her own project was a fundamentally different experience. She opted for honesty, and that’s exactly what Queen Of The Clouds offers. The project is divided into three parts: The SEX, The LOVE and The PAIN. The monologues are simple, but punchy.

“The passion in the beginning is always gonna be the best part of it,” she says at the album’s opener. Tracks like “My Gun” and “Like Em Young” fit that rhythmic sentiment of lust, which folds into love. “And then you freak out, because suddenly you need this person,” is the statement that announces the love portion of the project, with recent single  “Not On Drugs” being the best example of “I’m on a natural high.” Then the downward spiral begins.

“And then there’s no good way to end things, because it’s ending ya know?” is the “PAIN,” with her last leak “Thousand Miles” kicking it off, wondering about her love lost, followed by her first single “Habits (Stay High)”, aka an addiction to the feeling she lost in Chapter 2.

Tove Lo has become masterfully adept at jamming thoughtful words into dancey songs through her past songwriting, but she takes it a step further with Queen Of The Clouds. This is a story, one we’ve heard many times, but never laid out this honestly. Should she continue on this streak, she’ll undoubtedly be that girl we all laugh with, then cry with and then laugh with again.

Best Song That Wasn’t the Single: The dubsteppy “The Way That I Am” in all of its sound-switching-slash-introspective awesomeness.

Best Listened To: Sitting outside of your first therapy session. By the time the song finishes, you won’t even need a professional. Boom. $500 saved.

Idolator Score: 3.5/5

— Kathy Iandoli

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