Our favourite house supergroup shakes us up with a surprise resurrection and a new single, ‘It Gets Better’.
No drug works as well as a sniff of mystery. Swedish House Mafia, once again, got fans around the world hooked on a search for their new hard-hitting stuff. Billboards with the band’s logo, three white dots on the black background, have recently invaded the streets of New York City and Stockholm among others, hinting at something spectacular to come. Those speculations end today.
After an eight-year-long break foreshadowed by fractured dynamics in a group and eventual disbandment, Swedish dance music icons Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell and Steve Angello are back as one with a brand new single, ‘It Gets Better’. It’s a first release since their 2012’s seminal ‘Until Now’ LP.
Swedish House Mafia made a name for themselves as the ultimate game-changers of progressive and electro house music. Dropping out of the run before having a chance to shake us up some more, now they’re taking up on a challenge. They got a blank slate and made great use of it. ‘It Gets Better’ sounds like nothing you’d expect. That’s where the excitement lies.
The song is a bold declaration and a promise of brighter days to come. It’s got the raw, robotic feel of Kraftwerk amplified by tribal drums and bouncy synths. All that gory is oddly contrasted with comforting, going-round lyrics as if one lover would try to console and show affection to the other in simple words: ‘It gets better baby/I want you baby/Let me love you’. We’d think it’s no wonder they’ve chosen to sample ‘Lightning’s Girl’ by America’s darling, Nancy Sinatra.
‘It Gets Better’ video, directed by an artist Alexander Wessely and styled by super-talented Robbie Spencer, visually marks the group’s new beginning. Based in the middle of an underworld grey mass of human-like ravers scenery can give the creeps. There’s something ritualistic and emotional to their swinging around the cave-like surroundings. It’s as if all three group members’ not only musical but spiritual essence come together to form something bigger than themselves. Now that they’re finally awake, and as the video suggests zombie-like, it might be a real trip.
If the new single got you all worked up, it’s all good. Gear up your dancing shoes and prepare to go wild. You haven’t seen the last of Swedish House Mafia yet. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. In this case, it’s more than that. It’s spectacular.
Press play on Swedish House Mafia’s ‘It Gets Better’ below now.
