Already known for her compassionate, altruistic take on alt-pop by this point,
AURORA was inspired to write much of her fourth album after reading a 2022 letter by Indigenous activists ("We Are the Earth") calling for revolution in response to climate change. The resulting LP,
What Happened to the Heart?, explores motivation, love, philosophy, frustration, and more across a sprawling, 16-song track list that includes some of the singer's glossiest, most club-oriented material yet. Much of the time, the album's sound seems almost at odds with its earthly inspirations, but that's only on a surface level. Written on tour and recorded in Norway, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., it reflects collaborations with a succession of producers -- among them
the Chemical Brothers'
Tom Rowlands,
Dave Hamelin (
Beyoncé,
Zara Larsson),
Matias Tellez (
girl in red,
Real Ones), and singer/songwriter
Ane Brun -- and is full of appeals to others' better natures.
Brun is featured on the sinister-sounding "My Name" ("Will you forget I was here?"), one of several songs here to incorporate Eastern scales and melisma alongside pulsing dance beats. A track like "Starvation" dives headlong onto the dancefloor at the end, shifting from marching drum cadences to the club and then to a full-on, throbbing rave as it progresses. Meanwhile, it challenges with questions like "Why do we have to die/For us to see the light?" and "Do I need to be torn just to see who will care?" while also affirming that "My soul is hurting/But I got the stamina." Though most of
What Happened to the Heart? lands in a dance-pop middle ground stylistically, ballads like the Brazilian-flavored "The Essence" and synth-enhanced "Dreams" offer room to breathe with their drum-less or drum-light arrangements. By the end of its over-hour-long runtime,
AURORA implies that the answer to the early inquiry "Will the edge of my sorrow be gone in the morning?" (from tender orchestral opener "Echo of My Shadow") is no, but her soaring melodies and angular, confrontational club tracks make convincing pleas for the empathy and intentionality needed to turn things around. ~ Marcy Donelson
