Album of the Week: Queen of the Clouds, by Tove Lo
In case you aren't sure what Tove Lo's delectable debut is about, she provides tidy little subject headings: The Sex, The Love, The Pain. Each heading introduces a new chapter, which charts that timeless transition from lust to love to loss. As in life, The Pain is the longest chapter.
Tove Lo
Island/Universal
In case you aren't sure what Tove Lo's delectable debut is about, she provides tidy little subject headings: The Sex, The Love, The Pain. Each heading introduces a new chapter, which charts that timeless transition from lust to love to loss. As in life, The Pain is the longest chapter.
Tove Lo has more in common with Katy Perry than Lykke Li, but Queen of the Clouds isn't the same old schmaltzy story. Unlike many of the narratives emerging from Tove Lo's female contemporaries, from Ariana Grande to FKA Twigs, this isn't a victim's lament. Tove Lo is complicit: often, she's driving the car to its destruction.
She swings from jubilant to caustic to apologetic to reckless. She's more often sadist than masochist. If a man were singing, that would feel hackneyed. From Tove Lo, it's refreshing.
The album's strongest track is arguably its first - My Gun cleverly reverses phallic imagery and power. "That's ma' gun" she sings to the sound of a weapon being cocked. "I'm not easy, but go ahead and touch me now." On Like Em Young, she suggests: "Hey boy, you're too young for me/But I don't care."