Album Review: ‘Powerslide’ by Soleima

Denmark’s latest electro-alt-pop phenomenon is here to stay with an assured and thematically epic debut. After a string of acclaimed singles and EPs, the long-anticipated album crowns Soleima’s relentless search for a raw, emotional, and off-kilter sound brandishing mass pop appeal. Powerslide (2020), as the title suggests, is about regaining control—interrogating the psychological duality behind losing one’s self while reevaluating personal priorities and exploring more vulnerable domains. The artist’s half-obscured visage on the portrait cover could not make the statement clearer. Soleima’s ambitiously larger-than-life writing and defiant electronic aesthetic culminates in this genre-bending celebration of inner calamity and redemption.

The emerging Danish star is as eclectic as her music promises. Her training ranges from being the only female in a 7-piece Danish hip-hop collective (learning from urban “greats” such as Wu-Tang and The Roots) to immersing herself in anthropological field work in Nepal. The music in Powerslide resists categorization, relying instead on a colorful patchwork of international influences imbued with a wonderfully sardonic edge. Fans of FKA Twigs and Lykke Li will recognize the avant-pop sensibility of Soleima’s music amid its brash, unapologetic, and maximalist soundscapes. U.S. audiences will inevitably feel drawn to its R&B, P-funk, and house infusions.

The guitar-riff-driven opening track “Roses” makes for a strong anthemic highlight, setting the scene for Powerslide’s nebulously optimistic tone. Soleima’s vocal hooks are smooth, melodious, and intoxicating, as if drenched in red wine; meanwhile, the track invokes crunch distortion, dirty trap beats, and brassy choruses, each creating a sonorous analogy to the problem of the conflicted psyche. It’s verifiably a bop—something you’d easily find on hit-maker Max Martin’s writing desk—each verse seeping with attitude and veering into precarious “diss track” territory. It’s a winning aesthetic combination that characterizes Soleima’s acerbic lyricism on this album.

“Grind” complements the upbeat opener with a slow contemplation of a troubled romance. Soleima sings about the conflicted desire to recede into the touch of an old lover, at once lamenting that physical touch is “not enough” to redeem the relationship. The lustful track is so deeply, irrevocably human. A feature verse by LA-based electronic artist Yoshi Flower dramatizes the concept, instigating a tense dialogue between lovers presumably stuck in a stalemate.

Many avant-pop twists and experimentations are introduced throughout, as in “We’re Going Home,” reclaiming a difficult love as a homecoming. Smooth synth pads evoke an ocean bed swelling under the moon’s gravitational pull in an extraordinary feat of narrative tone-painting. Soleima’s desire to transcend mainstream pop conventions clearly rewards listeners with revitalizing, courageous timbres supporting fresh themes and narrative approaches.

Soleima’s fluid identity in alt-pop, alt-electronic, avant-pop, and more rivals the scope of even the most respected, overseas, pop-experimentalist aristocrats such as Björk or Fever Ray. Alongside Powerslide‘s moody core is an impressive range of emboldened attitudes and ideas. Soleima’s talented songwriting showcases an artist eager for catharsis and recognition. Her first US tour recently concluded in February, finding the artist uniquely geared for international domination with the help of her refined debut album release.

Originally published by Euphoria ATX for In2une and AWAL/Kobalt