Elias Rønnenfelt often sounds like the act of singing physically pains him, like each breath he draws to fuel the next cavernous howl is a self-inflicted punishment. The Danish rocker has never been one to rest easy. He was just 17 when Iceage formed in 2008, and for over a decade, the band has remained consistent in its lineup and the quality of its output. Rønnenfelt released his solo debut, Heavy Glory, in 2024, and hasn’t hit the brakes since. This year, he teamed up with Yung Lean and Fousheé for two songs and collaborated with Dean Blunt on an EP, as well as a follow-up single: “Tears on His Rings and Chains,” a serene and stripped-back ballad with production from Blunt and Vegyn and a sly namedrop of the title of Rønnenfelt’s forthcoming record. On Speak Daggers, Rønnenfelt continues to grapple with hells both earthly and hypothetical, channeling his struggles with power and mortality into woozy industrial cloud punk.
As a solo artist, Rønnenfelt has collected a dream team of guests, and Speak Daggers is his most star-studded project to date. He recruits reggae legends the Congos for the melodica-led “Not Gonna Follow,” which amps up the tunneling, blown-out sound he flirted with on earlier solo work (and even some more recent Iceage tracks). He drags out the few words that make up the chorus (“The stars, the reach/The ends, the means/The rough, the cut/The rinse, repeat”) and lets every clang, rattle, and horn blast echo through the purgatorial atmosphere. A rogue banjo sneaks through “Blunt Force Trauma,” a duet between Rønnenfelt and Erika de Casier that marries folk with dance-punk, sensuality with violence. A voice as gravelly and dark as his can be domineering, but de Casier’s pound of feathers is a deft match—“Soft against the hard, like saliva on concrete,” as Rønnenfelt puts it. A collaboration with another soft-spoken Danish pop singer is less successful: Fine’s vocals on “Kill Your Neighbor” get swallowed up in the storm of chimes, handclaps, and drum machine distortion.
