Sóley is a national treasure—in Iceland, that is. The 30-year-old singer-songwriter rose to prominence in her home country just over a decade ago, when she began contributing backing vocals and pianos to the seven-piece indie pop act Seabear. After the band paused following its 2010 album, Sóley almost immediately dove headfirst into a tremendously successful solo career of dismal, often moribund folk.
Three EPs and two LPs later, she seems to have taken an interest in something brighter. Compared to her past output, her aptly titled new album Endless Summer is vivid, bright, and resplendent. Rife with stirring string flourishes and boosted recording fidelity, the LP is her most Icelandic yet, sharing an interest in orchestration and ambiance with her country’s two biggest exports: Björk and Sigur Rós.
It’s a direction that’s both audible and visible: whereas all of Sóley’s past releases have featured artwork that significantly obscures her face and seems to imply her imminent decay, Endless Summer’s cover gives at least a fairly clear picture of the artist behind the music. Her eyes are far more prominent than ever, and even though much of her face remains hidden, the color scheme and overall tone of the artwork is alluring and welcoming. There appears to be a clear, direct effort to step away from desolate balladry and defeated imagery on nearly every front.
Endless Summer’s eight tracks are by no means happy or gleeful, but they are more fleshed out and beautifully arranged compared to the crushing simplicity of Sóley’s previous work. “Sing Wood to Silence” adds flute and strings to her usual palette of piano and vocals, which here sounds like the music bed to a butterfly gliding through a sunlit Fantasia scene—and this is coming from someone whose second-most popular song on Spotify is simply titled “I’ll Drown.” “Grow” incorporates glimmers of guitar that actually grow as they approach an accordion-laced chorus that could pass for a segment of Beach House’s Devotion. Penultimate track “Traveler” even has a dash of Regina Spektor’s hop and skip outside the even more interesting moments when synthetic sparkle swells to rattle the song.
Although Endless Summer shines a light over the dark veil Sóley’s previously worn, its lyrics retain plenty of their solemnity. Wingless birds introduce the welcomingly intimate “Before Falling,” the world’s end is nigh on the thrilling, sprightly “Úa” and the object of “Never Cry Moon” is alone in a forest, crying for attention. Even as she embraces warmer strokes, Sóley remains a master of the grim and unsettling; this contrast begs the question of how she might sound if she penned lyrics as bright as her arrangements. For now, though, it’s more than satisfying to witness her lifting her prior sonic obfuscations—she’s never sounded this comfortable, as though she’s finally embracing her homeland’s orchestral destiny. After a decade this hard-worked, she’s earned it.