Album Review: Tove Lo, ‘Dirt Femme’

The latter half of 2022 has seen a welcome resurgence of several mid-2010s pop stars that have struggled to reach the heights of their breakout hits. Sam Smith scored his first U.S. No. 1 single eight years after his debut with the Kim Petras-assisted “Unholy,” Meghan Trainor’s “Made You Look” is shaping up to be her first major hit since 2016, and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue)” is already her highest-charting single since “Meant to Be” back in 2017. Even Carly Rae Jepsen scored a viral TikTok hit with her new Rufus Wainwright duet “The Loneliest Time.” All this must mean that something from Tove Lo’s Dirt Femme will penetrate, and hopefully dominate, the mainstream. The album is, after all, one of the finest records of the year.

Dirt Femme, and all of its sweaty candor, is the most logical entry point for us to reunite with the 2022 version of the discombobulated party girl we first met nine years ago via “Habits (Stay High).” Tove Lo’s new record presents itself as a diary laid bare; it’s the survey of the mind of a woman who is challenging, redefining, and outright rejecting her own definitions and understandings of married life, sexuality, and femininity. Tove Lo’s brand of pop music has always paired the most cloying melodies with stabbing synths and lyrics that are baptized in the darkness of emotional turmoil that poptimism tends to avoid. On Dirt Femme, Tove Lo uses that foundation to create the synth-laden soundscape that cradles her ruminations on how to avoid being a “Stepford wife” while nurturing the truth that she might not want what she’s “supposed to want.”

Tove Lo’s fifth studio album adds refreshing dashes of 90s rock and familiar splashes of disco heat to her primary sound, but those arresting synths remain the backbone of her sonic profile. Oscillating synths anchor “No One Dies From Love,” the album’s hauntingly cinematic opener. The synths shoot through the steady kick drum like bullets out of a gun held by a wounded lover. The synths on this album simultaneously provide Tove Lo with a template to enact subversion and convey the frenzy of seemingly disparate emotions that must coexist in her heart and psyche. “Suburbia” and “Grapefruit” juxtapose the escapist qualities of synthpop against confessionals about anxiety that stems from traditional expectations of marriage and disordered eating. On the latter, Tove Lo sings, “Take back the body I'm in / What I see is not me.” Moreover, “2 Die 4” plays into the inherent frenzy of synthpop with its frenetic look at an all-consuming love.

As is omnipresent on Tove Lo records, odes to sex inject the project with titillating dynamism. “Attention Whore” and “Pineapple Slice” deliver the album’s best transition as well as clever takes on the eroticism of dance music and the relationship between pleasure and pain. Dirt Femme is at its best, however, when Tove Lo submerges herself in the possibilities of sounds that are far from familiar. “True Romance” is among the most stunning ballads of the year; a career-best vocal performance that is grounded by a rasp that tugs at every last heartstring. It’s a relentlessly histrionic and high-stakes affair, but Tove Lo commits herself to the track’s desperation as she belts “‘Take a life for me,’ you know I'd do it instantly.” There’s also “I’m To Blame,” a left turn into an indie rock-indebted lane that trades sugary synths for hip-hop drums, exchanges Tove Lo’s trademark bluntness for poetic broad strokes, and features an arena-ready bridge that recalls Oasis.

The consistency of Dirt Femme is one of the more impressive musical feats of the year. Tove Lo has always been one of the most forward-thinking and vital artists operating in pop music, and her grimy analysis of femininity on her own terms through the most saccharine synthpop confections on Dirt Femme just further cements her legacy.

Key Tracks: “True Romance” | “Pineapple Slice” | “I’m To Blame” | “Call On Me” | “Grapefruit”

Score: 85