Tove Lo - ESTRUS [Ruby]

Tove Lo left the major label system in 2022 and has been noticeably freer ever since. ESTRUS arrives on her own Pretty Swede imprint and is the bluntest, most physical record she has made, which for a writer who built her name on blunt physicality is saying something.

The title refers to the fertile phase in a mammal's cycle, and the album is exactly as interested in desire as that suggests. "A Lot Of Feelings, No Solutions" opens it with the self-aware exasperation that has always made her songs land, and "I'm Your Girl Right?" turns insecurity into a hook. "Des Fleurs" and "Roomie" are the closest things here to ballads, though she never quite lets the tempo settle. "I'm The Cake" and "Die For My Art With A Lonely Heart" are pure pop maximalism, and "Estrus" closes the record where it started, unresolved on purpose.

Fourteen tracks of Swedish pop writing at its most craft-obsessed, delivered by someone with nobody left to answer to.

Standard pressing on red vinyl in a gatefold jacket.