Oh, the drama! Elias Rønnenfelt is back at his gothic best, moaning and gasping about “a tempest in drought” and “a studded veil” and pickling the word “Louisiana” until it bears no resemblance to its original form. The metaphor is pretty clear (“You’ve got me dying like a star/Collapsing nebula”), but all I can think about is Sharon Stone overdosing in the hallway in Casino or Bette Davis deliriously succumbing to fever in Beyond the Forest, radiating charisma even at the point of total devastation. “Star” accepts death as an inevitability and challenges you to make sure your pose is just right when the moment comes.
That’s been Iceage’s trick for years now—How, Rønnenfelt seems to ask himself, can I make Britpop, or pub punk, or a stonking horn section, sound totally fucking haunted? And sexy? On “Star,” they apply it to spangly, pop-leaning post-punk, complete with handclaps and theatrical dropouts. The song itself is so magnetically cool, anchored by the dynamic, borderline funky rhythm section of Dan Kjær Nielsen and Jakob Tvilling Pless, that it makes “dying like a star” sound less like chaotic implosion than the height of glamour, mystique, and sex.
