Album Review: Aurora, What Happened To The Heart?

What Happened To The Heart? marks Aurora’s fourth full-length release, and represents the Norwegian pop polymath’s definitive attempt to craft an ecosystem around her work. It’s an offering of rhetorical questions and resounding affirmations, with a sweeping sonic palette.

A 2022 letter co-authored by indigenous activists titled ‘We Are The Earth’ was an important catalyst for the album. The letter called for a revolution in the form of a collective response to climate change, with the authors describing the planet as “the heart that pulsates within us.” The phrase so resonated with Aurora that it inspired the album title.

What Happened To The Heart? is a narrative wonder, boasting themes of philosophy and spirituality. The music is equally inspired, from the muted sonics of ‘Essence’ to the doomsday dance-pop of ‘Earthly Delights’.

Conveyed via Aurora’s vocal acrobatics, the lyrics consistently return to the loss of spiritual connection in modern life, a theme most memorably addressed in the stunning one-two of ‘When The Dark Dresses Lightly’ and ‘A Soul With No King’.

Aurora’s most cathartic album yet, What Happened To The Heart? charts a journey from spiritual fragility to strength across billowing orchestral, electronic and folk-laden soundscapes. Terrific stuff.