Fever Ray "Plunge" (2017) ****

Karin Dreijer dropped her second Fever Ray album, the sexual, political Plunge (2017), with basically no notice. A big departure from the first self-titled FR album, Plunge hints at sounds and textures that we've heard from the Ray moniker and her main band The Knife but here she ventures deeper into "pop" than before (save for maybe "Heartbeats"). Make no mistake though, Dreijer is still making music that will never be accessible to the lowest common denominator, whether that's because of the strong lyrical content or because of the abrasive sounds.