Album Review: Afterglow, Ásgeir

Icelandic singer Ásgeir Einarsson has been pigeonholed as a bit player in the Bon Iver post-folk movement. It is a misdiagnosis he worked hard at debunking on his soaring 2014 debut and one he knocks into a cocked bowler on his transcendent second LP.

Soulful and slinky, where previously all was stolidly serious, Afterglow benefits from a move away from orchestral pomp into ghost-in-the-machine electronica. This is a brave departure – and a testament to the confidence the previously shy performer has gained following three years of sustained success (back home in Iceland one quarter of the population is estimated to own one of his records).

What is unchanged is Ásgeir’s cosmic warble, which thrives amid lolling beats and glitchy rumblings. The 24-year-old presents his lines in an ethereal half slur on single ‘Unbound’, while on ‘Stardust’, the slumber is shaken off to deliver a rattling hook.

Ásgeir’s early recordings were written entirely in Icelandic, with fellow Reykjavik native John Grant providing English translation. Here lyrics are mostly in English (once again penned with the singer’s poet-father). The sole exception is the five minute ‘Fennir Yfir’, a frosty fever-dream strip-lit with chiming piano and shuffling grooves. As with the rest of Afterglow, it’s uncannily poised and twinkles with marvellous, chilly grandeur.

Out now.

9/10