ÁSGEIR - Julia

Listening to an album is becoming a mechanical gesture. The streaming era allows music to be the soundtrack to our days: a mental and physical exercise that has become routine, and far from immune to boredom. Finding myself listening to the new album by singer-songwriter Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson was casual and unplanned. The promise of Icelandic music has already played every card it can to stand out in the contemporary folk-pop melting pot. Not even calling in John Grant for the English-language lyrics managed to shake up the pleasant predictability of his most recent work, at times a prisoner of its own routine.
Yet it took just a moment to be won over by the confident, poetic stride of "Smoke": nothing new, but sincere and intense enough to deserve a quick replay.

Here the sound of the banjo breaks apart the song's typical setup – guitar, piano, synth and drums – opening up unexpected West Coast shades that demand attention. Something has shifted along the path of the Reykjavík singer-songwriter. For his new album, "Julia", Ásgeir has set aside the evocative poems of his father Einar Georg Einarsson and the equally intense lyrics of Júlíus Aðalsteinn Róbertsson, fully stepping into his own as both songwriter and protagonist of these ten songs.
Pedal steel, hushed rhythms and the ever-stately sound of the organ settle into sumptuous, melancholic ballads. What at first seems like a pleasant detour, or the last remnants of a fleeting spark of inspiration, turns out to be the first chapter of a happy artistic renewal. The already well-tested synergy between graceful arrangements and the Icelandic singer-songwriter's Bon Iver-like falsetto works decidedly better this time around. Ásgeir veers toward country with a grace typical of the late 1970s ("Quiet Life"), yet without giving up the cool, ethereal textures of his early work ("Universe Beyond").
The pleasing exotic flavors of "Ferris Wheel", the tasteful use of a horn section accompanying the sensual groove of "Against The Current", and the well-judged dose of electronics dueting with guitars and xylophone on "Sugar Clouds" reveal a more spontaneous, expansive creative vision, reconciling the musician's already familiar poetic vulnerability with a more solid sense of inspiration.

Ásgeir's definitive coming-of-age also naturally plays out through his lyrics. Setting aside a few rough edges, they reveal a more spontaneous and expansive creative vision. A case in point is the title track: a song that, relying solely on delicate fingerpicking, a veil of strings and the purity of his voice, ranks among the artist's most intense compositions.
Recorded partly live in the studio, "Julia" is the Icelandic singer-songwriter's unexpected album of maturity. The bare-bones arrangements of "Stranger" and "Into The Sun" confirm its authenticity, but it's in the gorgeous folk-noir ballad "In The Wee Hours", with its electro-folk-pop stride reminiscent of Blue Nile, that all the magic of Ásgeir's new record becomes so palpable it sweeps away any lingering doubts. A surprising comeback.

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30/06/2026