Album Review
Tove Lo - Estrus
It’s been four years since the excellence that was Dirt Femme. The time is ripe for a new body of work by Tove Lo. That four-year gap didn’t leave her fully in silence though. Two years ago, she brought out the collaboration EP HEAT with SG Lewis. When she announced her big comeback and revealed the stunning visual for the album cover, we knew we were going to be in for a treat. For her last albums, she’s mainly been recording in LA and Stockholm studios. This time around, she wanted to reconnect with her roots. Tove went back to a small fishing village in Sweden where she spent her childhood summers and recorded part of Estrus there. The location wasn’t just aesthetically Swedish. A lot of the emotional material came from memories associated with that place and her younger self. The perfect fuel to write about growing up, depression, her eating disorder, breakups, family drama and loss. The singer explained the album title as “Estrus is an animal in heat. It's primal, contradicting emotional chaos.” before adding, “my mind and my body wanting different things, wanting everything.” It basically sums up the perfectly curated chaos that shines through on the body of work. Opening track ‘a lot of feelings, no solutions’ perfectly describes the world we are stepping into. Right from the start, she bares all over a glossy dance-pop production, leading us into the euphoric lead single ‘I’m your girl right?’. We’ve made no secret that this is one of our favourite pop songs released in 2026. After the strong start, we can’t help but feel a bit underwhelmed moving onto the following tracks. Sure, ‘if I could I would’ is by no means bad, and we do love the Stromae collaboration ‘des fleurs x stromae’. They just feel out of place, or simply not in the right position in the tracklist. ‘DNH’ rebuilds the energy strongly, reminding us of the Tove Lo we fell in love with in the first place. A big, bold and horny dance track expressing desire while being in the club. All of our favourite songs on the album are comfortably hiding in the second half of the album. The up-tempo, almost chanting ‘die for my art with a lonely heart’ is Tove at her very best. In the song, she explores the idea that suffering is necessary for great art. We love the tension she builds throughout the song. She’s reached a point where happiness is taking over her life, but part of her is almost suspicious of that happiness. The song asks whether letting go of the pain that used to inspire her might also mean letting go of an important part of her creativity. The hitmaker painfully sings about the uncertainty of not knowing where you stand in your relationship on ‘are we on a break’. She explores the fear that while you’re trying to understand where it all went wrong, the other person could suddenly meet someone else, fall in love again or simply stop missing you. It does an excellent job of capturing that uniquely painful space between a relationship ending and actually letting go. We are having the most fun on ‘roomie’, especially after finding out what the funky track is actually about. During the recording sessions of the album, her husband Charlie Twaddle became fascinated by a little lizard living around their house. Ultimately, he named the lizard his roommate. Somehow, this inspired her to write a song about reconnecting with Mother Nature in the most sexual and fun way possible. The result is one of the silliest songs ever recorded by the Swedish singer. Craziest part? This might be Clean’s personal favourite. Tove Lo proves once again that she is one of the best songwriters in today’s pop music, delivering a pop record where songs about lizards and fearing happiness because it might affect her creativity as an artist somehow live together under the same roof. The album might have a slightly underwhelming moment in the middle of the tracklist, but when it’s at its high... it’s really high!
