On August 22nd, 2025, Laufey released an album that was the start of a new emotional rollercoaster of songs set to make the listeners dance in their seats or bawl their eyes out.
Each song of the track starts with instrumentals so beautifully written that you could feel the emotion in the hymns and possibly soak your pillows with tears.
The album begins with a lovesick instrumental, bringing the listener into the first two songs, “Clockwork” and “Lover Girl”. “Clockwork” is about being in the early stage of a relationship, planning dates and having romantic getaways, and eventually beginning to fall for each other “like clockwork.” “Lover Girl” dives further into that feeling, getting into the mood of a lovesick high school girl, desperately hoping for her feelings to be reciprocated.
Progressing into the record, the pieces “Snow White” and “Castle in Hollywood” lead into the light heartaches of the album. “Snow White” is about dealing with insecurities. It expresses the hurt that is felt with the protagonist finding someone who is praised more, despite having the same talents, as a result of pretty privilege. The melody “Castle in Hollywood” dances the listener into lyrics that portray the feeling of losing a close friend and the yearning for their return in life.
Throughout the song, Laufey expresses the feeling through lines like “thought that lilies died by winter” and “bloomed again in spring.” This metaphor is used to say that she believed that disagreements were all right in a friendship, and that a friendship could be maintained afterwards.
Furthering into the feeling of heartbreak, Laufey introduces the listener into “Too Little, Too Late,” a melody about someone being too late to propose to the person they love. Throughout the track, it demonstrates the pain of losing a person that is deeply rooted in their heart to another. For example, Laufey sings from a male point of view about being “soulmates in another lifetime,” and being the one who they should be engaged to, “whispering vows [he’ll] never say to [her].”
Easing into a less heartwrenching tune, “Tough Luck” is a song about standing up in a less than ideal relationship. Directed at a persona’s previous partner, the melody expresses that she has had enough of “waiting until [they] lie and cheat,” referencing a situation that happened in the other person’s previous relationship. Towards the end of the song, the singer goes on to sarcastically congratulate her ex-boyfriend for not destroying her confidence in herself as a person, despite the degrading comments made towards her.
The gut-wrenching final ballad of the album is “Sabotage.” Laufey desperately attempts to warn someone that she is not a good person, knowing that she is destined to hurt them in the future. She depicts this by mentioning how it is “just a matter of time before [they] see the dagger” and how it is a “special of [hers] to cause disaster.” The lyrics swear to marry the person while also heeding that they should “brace [their] heart for cold, bloody, bitter sabotage” that Laufey believes she is fated to cause.
Overall, the melody of each song and the impact of the writing makes each of these songs hit hard in their own way. Whether it be agonizingly depressing or twirl-along whimsical, each track is its own jazz-pop masterpiece.
