Inspired by an open letter penned by Indigenous climate activists, Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora’s What Happened to the Heart? explores the Earth as a vessel for self-actualization. Viewing the natural world with a childlike sense of awe and wonder, Aurora acknowledges the ephemerality of life across 16 sonic landscapes that are, at turns, as lush, thorny, and teeming with diversity as the planet itself.
Aurora analogizes her body to the Earth on tracks like “The Essence”—comparing herself to a tree, “vulnerable just like me”—and equates her mortality to that of the planet’s through an almost metaphysical lens on “Your Blood” and “My Name.” “Your blood, what matter is it made of?/Do you feel it travel in and out of your heart?” she wonders on the former track, before declaring, “We are dust,” nodding to the theory that everything in the material world is made of stardust while also recognizing the finality of physical death.
True to its title, though, What Happened to the Heart? isn’t just a series of heady theoretical exercises. Aurora uses them as a jumping off point for personal discovery. “To Be Alright” captures that quintessentially human quest for love and happiness: “I want to feel it, to feel it/What people talk about,” she proclaims with equal parts exasperation and anticipation.
Subtle tribal influences infuse “Earthly Delights” and “The Dark Dresses Lightly,” and “A Soul with No King” pairs traditional instruments like fiddle and piano with electric guitar. But given how thematically rooted the album is in nature, Aurora surprisingly delves deeper than ever into synthetic sounds, from the spacey synth pads of “To Be Alright” to the looped vocal arpeggios of “The Conflict of the Mind,” which sounds like a classic pop standard as sung by Kate Bush.
The album’s final third in particular takes an unexpected turn into electro-pop (“My Name”), disco (“Do You Feel”), heavy metal (“My Body Is Not Mine”), and something resembling hyperpop (“Starvation”). The latter song, about the challenge of making human connection in the age of technology and artificial intelligence, boasts a pulsing kick drum, marching-band breakbeat, and a rave-tastic climax featuring deformed vocals—“Why do we have to die/For us to see the light?”—that sound like they’re circling the event horizon of a black hole.
Aurora’s voice is as versatile as the sonic palettes she plays with. In addition to Bush, she evokes Jane Siberry on the acoustic “Dreams” and her cadence and lyrical style occasionally sounds downright Björkian, no more so than on the album’s lullaby-ish closing track, “Invisible Wound”: “I squeeze into a small hole/Through the eyes of needles/To stitch you up again.”
But at her best, which is more often than not, Aurora’s literal and figurative voice is uniquely her own. “Learn my body and my poems/And repeat them like you own them,” she offers on “Dreams.” It’s this sense of poetry that keeps What Happened to the Heart? from feeling pedantic. But most of all, it’s her ability to locate the big, beating heart inside the machine.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
