The Iceage singer’s second solo record finds its own space in the hazy overlap of folk, post-punk, and cloud rap.

Elias Rønnenfelt often sings as if each word tears through him, as if every breath he takes to power another cavernous howl is a kind of punishment. Restlessness has always defined him. He was only 17 when Iceage formed in 2008, and over the years, the band has remained steady in both its members and its artistic weight. Rønnenfelt released his first solo album, Heavy Glory, in 2024 and has barely paused since. This year alone, he has worked with Yung Lean and Fousheé on two tracks and joined forces with Dean Blunt on an EP, followed by a single, “Tears on His Rings and Chains.” That song is an understated and serene ballad, produced by Blunt and Vegyn, that casually drops the title of his next record. On Speak Daggers, Rønnenfelt confronts both real and imagined demons, channeling his preoccupation with power and mortality into a heavy, intoxicating blend of industrial cloud punk.

As a solo artist, Rønnenfelt has gathered an impressive roster of collaborators, and Speak Daggers is his most ambitious work in that regard. He brings in reggae icons the Congos on “Not Gonna Follow,” a track led by melodica that expands on the warped, cavernous sound he explored on earlier solo projects and some recent Iceage songs. He draws out each phrase of the chorus—“The stars, the reach/The ends, the means/The rough, the cut/The rinse, repeat”—and lets every clatter of percussion, horn blast, and echo seep into the track’s purgatorial air. “Blunt Force Trauma,” a duet with Erika de Casier, mixes folk textures with dance-punk rhythms, a collision of tenderness and brutality. His gravelly, commanding voice meets her featherlight delivery in a way that he describes as “Soft against the hard, like saliva on concrete.” A second collaboration with Fine, another soft-voiced Danish singer, falters. On “Kill Your Neighbor,” her vocals dissolve beneath a storm of chimes, claps, and distorted beats.

Throughout Speak Daggers, devotion is portrayed as something dangerous, compared to sharp tools and heavy objects. “I love you/I hurt you even better,” he sings on “Mona Lisa,” a song that is both devastating and danceable. It begins with the crack of gunfire and threads stabbing violins through its chorus as Rønnenfelt raps about crumbling masterpieces, using them as metaphors for personal collapse. “Crush the Devils Head” is another slow descent, where the illusion of moral immunity proves as seductive as evil itself. “Crush the devil’s head/Lord knows he’s made a devil out of you,” he slurs over a syrupy, sputtering beat. “Love How It Feels” gestures toward finality with the line “This generation’s not free,” but feels too unresolved to land fully. “USA Baby” strikes harder. Here, Rønnenfelt takes the perspective of a non-American watching their American partner bear the weight of a collapsing system. The clinking chains in the background match the song’s apocalyptic tone, a love story framed against the collapse of empire.

The intense, sensual post-punk energy that defined his work with Iceage now moves at a slower, moodier tempo in his solo music. The chugging rhythms that once propelled him through rapid-fire choruses now drag and stretch, often punctuated by piercing “ooh-oohhhh” vocal flourishes. His delivery on Speak Daggers leans closer to Lil Peep’s melancholic cadence than Nick Cave’s growling intensity, though his themes remain centered on violence, corruption, and spiritual disarray. “If this is a prison, then the world is one,” he proclaims on “World Prison,” the track that most directly recalls Iceage’s raw poetic energy. That same spirit now stretches across the album as Rønnenfelt plants himself firmly in the hazy territory between folk, post-punk, and cloud rap.

Rønnenfelt has become Denmark’s bard of disillusionment, narrating a landscape where every triumph is hollow and every loss is a mercy. In his world, there are no victors, only the soft thud of another fall. Each act of survival carries a cost, and every win comes wrapped in blood.