The first feeling

when Sibille Attar's characteristic singing voice breaks out on A history of silence is: Wow, that was a long time ago.

The deliberately skewed way of singing, preferably in broken English a la Björk or Fever ray, has not aged very well.

Rather than original, today it sounds quite artificial, mannered and above all very old-fashioned.

But it is also a while ago that Sibille Attar was indies Sweden's biggest darling.

Then, during the early ten's, she released a debut album that overturned the whole of music Sweden.

Sleepyhead was fun and smart while being deep, beautiful and very unique.

But then it became

quiet.

The fatigue that came from trying to adapt to other people's opinions about her music led to a musical stalemate and a long break that was not broken until 2018 with the hand of the EP Palomas.

Only now will the sequel to the debut, which has been aptly named A history of silence.

Attar has both written, recorded and produced the album himself.

And the overall theme is very real liberation.

Introductory Hurt me is a damn song that does not take any prisoners and that sets the tone for the rest of the album.

She mixes English, French and Swedish as if she wants to be really sure that the message is really getting through:

"I will no longer be forced to listen to your voice, I no longer need you"

There are songs

in the evenings

you are last left at the party and become that annoying bastard who refuses to go home, who drank himself drunk even though you did not really want to get drunk, just stunned.

And a nice cover of Madonna's fine father murder from 1989, Oh Father, about how different everything feels when you stop trying to please.

It's not the only 80's flirtation.

Saxophone, glittery synths and nicely sloppy drums can be heard both here and there.

And she manages to create her very own take on shoe gaze completely without reverbed guitars but with vocals through an airy filter and an atmospherically distorted organ.

It's easy to hear

what a more mammonist producer would have wanted to iron out or change.

The hateful recorder on The world is on fire that sounds as if the primary school put together a socially critical song for the lunch break concert, for example.

Or the first chorus on Hard 2 love, which stops the whole song instead of lifting and exploding.

But that is of course the point, and it is both nice and smart how she repeatedly lets the message play with the music.

Hard 2 love is about being yourself, even if it means that you become harder to love.

So even the song must be a little hard to love, with a little skewed and outdated song, until it captures one after all - or maybe rather just because.