Cathartic anthems for the dance floor

Returning with her first album in eight years, Robyn continues to deliver the powerful, dance-driving music she is known for. She offers pop that eschews the current trap and hip-hop trends, instead she crafts club bangers. Robyn brings authenticity and raw vulnerability in her lyrics and wraps them in pop tunes. Since her last album, Robyn has experienced death, depression and lost love—and she has used these experiences to inform a cathartic album that brings the great feelings of leaving all the pain on the dance floor. 

Honey is a tight 40-minute, nine-song album. It opens with the glittering “Missing U”—deceptive in its bright synths and dance rhythms, it’s a wrenching song for anyone that’s gone through a breakup. The next track, “Human Being,” is an appropriately stark track that underlines the feelings of being a human being in an increasingly technological world. She begs for forgiveness on “Baby Forgive Me” which blends into the following “Send to Robin Immediately,” named for the reaction she had upon listening to the demo version of the track.

The title track “Honey” is a driving dance club record with artfully sexual lyrics that was featured in a final-season episode of HBO’s Girls. In a sense, Robyn book-ended the show, as another Robyn track “Dancing on My Own” was featured prominently in a first-season episode. “Between The Lines” is a nostalgic and hypnotic dance track that could easily be mistaken as a song from the ’90s. “Beach2k20” features what sounds strikingly similar to the Casio keyboard “Samba” beat preset and is yet another trance-inducing song. She closes the album out with “Ever Again,” an ode to swearing off heartbreak and an apt end to an album that delved deep into her own experiences with breakups and heartache. 

Honey is a welcome return for a transcendent diva of dance pop. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait another eight years to hear from Robyn, but luckily her songs from all albums have the staying power to hold us over.