Robin: Sex Review – Bob DeWane returns with emotional bombs and a new philosophy | Robin

TA self-proclaimed Fembot who always pushes people’s buttons. Robyn may be famous for bringing raw emotion to the dance floor, but her pop songs about desire and desperation are often accompanied by social media commentary: “Plug me in and flip some switches,” she once joked, pretending to be a sexy cyborg with a bloody beating heart. So it’s no surprise to find the Swedish star wearing a lab coat on Dopamine, her first single in seven years. The song speeds up with shimmering synths, but Robyn, now 46, holds it at arm’s length. “I know it’s just dopamine, but it feels so real to me / I’m tripping over our chemistry,” she muses, taking notes as her synapses tingle. “Is love more than chemicals?” she seems to ask. Does it matter if it doesn’t? But this time the song does not represent a social criticism, but rather a completely new philosophy.

Sexistential, Robyn’s ninth studio album, reveals the focus on romantic love that fueled her biggest hits. Gone are the soft edges and sensual, throbbing house of her previous album Honey, and the sharp electronic sounds of 2010’s Body Talk return through a new lens. With longtime collaborator Klas Ölund and a few familiar faces (including Metronomy’s Joe Mount and Swedish pop royalty Max Martin), Sexistential reimagines Robyn’s discography without romance as a vehicle. The title track is a three-minute case study in her new mindset. At the bare minimum, Robyn sings in ’80s house about having sex while going through IVF as a solo parent: “Fuck single mom, I don’t judge,” she winks, separating sex from procreation and the nuclear family. Its counterpart is “Blow My Mind,” a revamp of her 2002 single that made it psychedelic, faster, and sharper — no longer a biblical love song, but a song about the love of her young son.

Twisting a classic Robyn trope, opener “Real Real” gives us gory details of the breakup. Beneath the covers, the “Mediocre Performance” singer realizes the relationship is over, and a claustrophobic drum machine pushes the song toward its inevitable emotional breakdown. But instead of an agonized catharsis, she is interrupted by a tender phone call from her mother: glass shatters, an electric guitar roars, and the world never ends. Straight out of 2010 (which isn’t a bad thing, in Robyn’s view), Sucker for Love races over the revved-up video game consoles and drops an emotional bomb on that ex: “If you’re scared, say you’re scared,” she dared. Even with the old vocoder and Ministry of Sound piano, Talk to Me feels like new territory: part therapy, part phone sex, and takes a scalpel for a truly frightening need for validation.

As with all great philosophers, Rubin’s argument is sometimes difficult to follow. The album’s finale, Into the Sun, is a soaring electro ballad with vocal trappings of triumph, but the interwoven religious imagery makes it difficult to parse—the rare Robyn song that leaves you unsure of where she stands. Instead, Sexistential’s defining moment falls on dopamine. After throwing away that lab coat, Robyn not only gave in to emotion, as in the past, but found a way to hold two truths at the same time: emotions are chemical, and some emotions are felt. surprising. “When I let go, it’s so easy,” she giddily spins before hitting a high note that comes straight from the gut. Sometimes, joy is as simple as cold water on a hot day: skin-purifying, skin-tingling, and essential.