Album Review: ICONOCLASTS by Anna von Hausswolff

Oh Anna, you beautiful soul, you've done it yet again. Anna von Hausswolff has always been such an integral artist for me personally ever since I discovered her music in 2018 with the release of (her magnum opus) Dead Magic. That album made me fall instantly in love with Anna's ability to take droning, ethereal darkwave music and blend it serenely with calming post-rock and eerily frightening dark ambient backdrops. Most of her previous albums were chock-full of similar types of uneasy, cult-like hymns that had you wondering if you were listening to some sort of dark ritual in progress.

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‘ICONOCLASTS’ is, perhaps, an unfitting title for Anna von Hausswolff's seventh album. A decade deep into her career, the Swedish avant-gardist has made a cult name from herself with her uncanny - indeed, iconoclastic - sound. She has transformed her voice into a deranged weapon, firing away salvos of shrieks, ululations and wails. She has built sweeping soundscapes entirely on church organ, innovating a strange sonic third space somewhere between drone and Gregorian chant.

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Anna von Hausswolff's Iconoclasts opens with "The Beast," an instrumental track built around a dissonant saxophone figure. It's an unexpected start to an album that moves from this relatively simple introduction to more complex, cinematic songs featuring a bevy of vocal guests, including Ethel Cain, Abul Mogard, Iggy Pop, and Anna's sister Maria. The sax reappears on tracks like "Facing Atlas" and "Unconditional Love," often playing circular arpeggios, but vocals, especially von Hausswolff's, are the album's central focus.

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