The word “estrus”–referring to the fertile window of a female animal’s hormone cycle, more commonly described as being “in heat”–derives from words for madness. The word’s Latin and Greek roots refer to gadflies, who feed in biting frenzies; “oistros” was used by Plato and Socrates to describe a kind of frantic, burning passion. So while on the surface, ESTRUS may seem like a characteristically horny album title from the Swedish pop provocateur Tove Lo, it also hints at a maddening, all-consuming state that’s a little less sexy. Tove Lo has said that, in choosing the title for her sixth studio album, she was drawn to descriptions of estrus in animals as a time of emotional complexity: “It’s not just like, ‘I’m horny, let’s procreate,’” she explained. “It’s also like, ‘I’m feeling fragile and anxious and vulnerable.’”
With flashes of synth-pop brilliance, ESTRUS deftly walks this tightrope walk between anxious thoughts and embodied euphoria. One of the most magnetic examples is lead single “I’m your girl, right?,” a prowling, house-indebted stomper that contrasts fluorescent-bright piano chords and hand claps with lyrics that feel like a love note written in blood (“I like your teeth, could watch you eat for days”). In the video, Tove Lo and her dancers chafe against institutional conformity, shrugging off steely blue-grey uniforms to writhe in naked rapture.
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That urge to rip free from expectations and give in to impulse runs throughout the album, but sometimes in frustratingly fleeting glances. The record opens with “A lot of feelings, no solutions,” a 50 second-snippet of bass-weighted disco that could have been lifted from Tove Lo’s 2017 record Blue Lips—but it cuts short before it ever really gets going. It feels like a false start, which mirrors Tove Lo’s writing process: She’s described the difficulty she had with getting started on this album, scrapping a month of writing with a longtime collaborator and only finding her stride after a six-month break and a relocation to Sweden.
