The piercing, Swedish-accented voice on most of Fever Ray’s debut album belongs to Karin Dreijer Andersson of the Knife. And the low, slurry man’s voice that pops up here and there? That’s Andersson too, singing through a harmonizer; this is her solo project, but it sounds like the work of an entire band of singer-keyboardists. More specifically, it recalls the Depeche Mode of 25 years ago: Her synthesizers are set for the heart of the Reagan era, and the deliberate, grimly percolating pulse of these songs evokes the surly anguish of adolescence. Andersson’s lyrics are often tricky to make out—can she really be singing, “We talk about love/We talk about dishwasher tablets”?—but almost every song incorporates shrewd production details, like the clog-dance percussion that kicks “I’m Not Done” forward.

Download “When I Grow Up”