Icona Pop’s Ritual Promises Transformation But Gives Familiar
Article by Cara Col
The recent release of Icona Pop’s single “Ritual” is proof that what launched their success 13 years ago wasn’t lightning in a bottle. The collaboration with singer-songwriter Daya is a darkwave racetrack with a pulse that urges the listener to find their “inner Ferrari,” and drive.
Sonically and lyrically, it boasts what the electro-pop duo’s third studio album of the same name promises: maturity and transformation. Since the so-massive-it’s-restrictive success of “I Love It” in 2013, Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt have gone through heartbreak, sickness, and motherhood. They have grown as both artists and women. Ritual is presented as ownership of everything they’ve learned.
The album has two settings: the neon corners of the nightclub your sweaty body finds haven in before you step out to the spotlight of a city streetlight; and the coast of an Ibiza beach with your name on the guest list for your favorite DJ. The former is where Icona Pop opens the album, and where they most succeed with the goal they have set out. Unfortunately, it’s where the album spends the least time.
The first track “Hurt” starts with ambient instrumentals and distorted vocals, and slowly builds up to a club hit about radical acceptance with droning synths, techno kicks, and Icona’s Pop signature layered vocals. Around the second verse, they implement a spoken word element to their performance that adds another layer of sincerity.
This technique is used in the subsequent track “Ritual,” where we get a real-life anecdote that flexes the duo’s songwriting about a visit to “a medicine man in New York City” who prescribes “heat, warmth, touch,” and “dance your ass off.” The third track, “Dance to This,” is a list of every impulsive desire one may feel on a night out, backdropped by synthetic plucks that ascend and descend in thickness.
With these first three tracks, Jawo and Hjelt celebrate electronic dance music and the spaces that play it for its medicinal indulgence. Their music becomes a vehicle through which their life lessons are disseminated, underlined by sonic journeys that strengthen the emotion of the lyrics.
This approach to music is what was behind Icona Pop’s hit “I Love It,” a break-up anthem whose bloghouse hard synths and catchy screaming vocals perfectly encapsulated the edginess and angst of the lyrics. Though none of these songs sound like “I Love It” or any other song off of their debut album This Is… Icona Pop, they still feel like the natural artistic evolution of the approach that their debut album established.
The rest of the album rarely catches this again. As the fourth track, “Butterfly Feelings,” begins, we are on our way to that second setting, the beach in Ibiza, or perhaps, a setting that is more familiar to most of us, H&M or Zara. The house-influenced retail pop sound that the album takes on is like the duo’s second studio album Club Romantech; an album whose dance tracks lack a charm that makes you want to run it back.
The dark and mature energy is mostly abandoned to make way to a comfortable, unchallenging sound with comfortable, unchallenging themes of love and lust. While the improvement in songwriting is still on display, the production leaves something wanting as track after track recycle yet another arpeggiated melody.
This is not necessarily to say that the rest of the album is bad: the songs are still solid and catchy. “Yellow Top” and “Didn’t Mean Like That” have cheeky sing-a-long lyrics that promise a fun listen. Yet, this is much less the result of something particular to these songs, and much more the result of following a successful pop formula and straying away from risks. Most of Ritual takes on a sound that you can find in abundance, especially in today’s electronic pop resurgence. It is disappointing when the next moment of excitement since the first few tracks of the album comes from a ritardando in the last 30 seconds of the final track “Foreverness.”
The success of Icona Pop’s debut album lay in how they took pop music and explored everything they could with it. Tracks like “Ready for the Weekend” show their ability to mix seemingly opposing elements, like a church choir vocal before a robotic, autotuned pre- chorus, and have it work. Ritual starts strong with Icona Pop showing us that they not only still have a knack for innovative pop music, but that they have also matured as artists and are ready to tackle more personal themes. As the album unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the transformation the duo promises is not yet musically complete.
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Icona Pop Tour Dates:
September 25, 2026 – Baby’s All Right – New York City, NY
October 2, 2026 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
October 23, 2026 – Pustervik – Göteborg, Sweden
October 24, 2026 – Mejeriet – Lund, Sweden
October 30, 2026 – Vulkan Arena – Oslo, Norway
November 6, 2026 – Arbis Bar & Salong – Norrköping, Sweden
November 7, 2026 – Berns – Stockholm, Sweden
November 13, 2026 – Pumpehuset – Copenhagen, Denmark
November 20, 2026 – TBA – Las Vegas, NV
November 21, 2026 – Moroccan Lounge – Los Angeles, CA
Icona Pop Biography:
Icona Pop has always represented the ultimate freedom of expression for its two members and longtime friends: Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo.
Their freedom as women and artists has underscored their thriving impact and influence as one of pop music’s most innovative and irresistible multiplatinum chart-topping forces of nature. However, their third full-length album, Ritual, is actually about ownership. They are owning who they are as mothers, creative partners, entrepreneurs, leaders, sisters,and women.
This feminine reclamation manifests across the record, carving out a safe space for emotion, release, and transformation. Truly inclusive, it’s there for anybody who’s willing to open up to the sound as well. Throughout this process, they’ve reshaped the dancefloor into a holy space guided by the spell of music with dancing and body movement as the ultimate catharsis. Life may have changed, and the industry may have changed, but their friendship is stronger than ever.
Caroline and Aino went from being club kids in Stockholm to commanding clubs, arenas, and festivals from the stage. They’ve watched one another fall in love, fall out of love, and find love again. They’ve been there for each other through heartbreak, success, sickness, and anything else that two decades of friendship could throw at them. They even both became moms within days of each other, passing this bond onto their children. Through love, divorce, anxiety, success, and reinvention, they’ve grown stronger.
Now, the spirit of sisterhood shines brighter than ever on Ritual. The LP is a late-night conjuration of expertly crafted emotional electro-pop rooted in bubbly growing synth architecture and based in euphoric tension, yearning for climax through melodic maximalism. It invites you into a world of late-night conjuration of club-ready rhythms, emotional synthesizers, bittersweet pop melodies, and lyrics that are both raw and vulnerable. It’s the sound of two women at the height of their emotional intelligence and creative confidence as the regain ownership of their artistry and lives.
“It’s always been us against the world,” Caroline says. “But now, it feels like we’ve built a world of our own. We let each other grow; and we want each other to be happy. It’s beautiful to have somebody with you through the hardest times, but also the greatest times. We don’t take it for granted.”
Aino elaborates, “No matter what different period of life we’re in, our friendship grows stronger every time we go through something. We’ve learned to know each other through music. It’s beautiful how Caroline is even more than a sister to me—she’s like the twin I never had.”
A season of changes set Ritual into motion. The onset of motherhood marked biggest and the most beautiful change. At the same time, moving back to Sweden after many years in Los Angeles would be significant as well. Caroline went through the kind of heartbreak that flips life upside down. Simultaneously, Aino had quietly struggled with overwhelming anxiety. Still, they leaned one another through constant communication.
“Looking back we were both struggling in our own way and had different needs to heal. I think it was very beautiful that we gave each other that space to work on ourselves while still being there for each other,” says Caroline.
She elaborates, “The whole journey with Ritual was us being in the studio with people that made us feel safe enough to stay in the uncomfortable and explore. We had no rules making this album. All feelings were welcome, and that felt very liberating. That’s why the album sounds so honest. Writing the album became very therapeutic and important to be able to move forward and heal.”
This honesty defines the single “Hurt Me.” Lonely keys flicker in the distance as a chopped-up vocal loop flutters in the foreground. The momentum picks up, and a confessional chorus takes hold, “Although you hurt me, everything comes to an end.” Shaking off the sadness, the track races to the finish line on a pulsating bass-heavy outro.
“We were absolutely crying in the studio,” Caroline remembers. “It’s written from the perspective of let go and starting to move on. It’s a vulnerable track about the process of saying goodbye. The message is, ‘Even though you hurt me, I’m still alive. I can look back at memories and think they were beautiful. I wonder if you see it the same way. I hope you do’.”
She adds, “‘Hurt Me’ is not an angry song about revenge. It’s a song about brutal acceptance of being left by the one you love. It hurts, but you’re realizing that you’re going to be fine and you’re letting go. When the song reaches climax at the end, it almost feels like you’re out on the other side dancing with your friends again still hurt—but also happy.”
“Dance To This” channels O.G. Icona Pop with its chanting choir hook and edgy verses punctuated by clever couplets like, “I kinda wanna get a drink, but I don’t wanna pay the price. I kinda wanna take you home, but I really gotta hear this song. I kinda wanna burn a bridge, kinda wanna be a bitch, kinda wanna take a risk, kinda wanna dance to this.” It spirals into the embrace of a body-moving sweat-soaked dancefloor-ready refrain.
“The production definitely reminds me of old Icona Pop,” smiles Aino. “We could perform it live, but we could also put it in a DJ set.”
“Lyrically, it’s one of those nights when you’re finding yourself by going out,” Caroline reveals. “During a healing process, you have to slow down and think, but you can’t work on yourself 24/7 for too long. You need to get out and see what happens. If you mess up, you mess up. It’s the moment you see yourself dancing and connected to your essence. For the night, you’re not thinking of everyone else; it’s just about getting into the music.”
Then, there’s the epic title track “Ritual” featuring Daya. A rickety bassline wobbles beneath cinematically ceremonial verses where “a medicine man in New York City” offers up sagely advice. As the production twists and turns, the hook simply intoxicates, “This is my ritual. Yeah, I do it to survive.”
“‘Ritual’ explains what the album is all about,” Caroline notes. “You’re searching for answers and wondering, ‘Who am I? How do I move forward?’ It’s very spiritual and true. One of our closest friends visited a medicine man searching for answers, and he looked at her and said, ‘Your body is cold. You need to dance and eat warm food. You need to make your body feel alive’. We had to put that in the song, and Daya was amazing on it!”
“It spotlights these small rituals we rely on to get through everyday life,” Aino elaborates. “You have your little walk, brush your teeth, put your hair up, or drink your coffee at a certain place. Caroline and I work very differently, which is why we’re a good team. I’m a slow thinker; she is a Ferrari! Our differences are a superpower.”
Futuristic synths and a snappy beat underscore the cheeky and catchy “Butterfly Feelings.” The hook asks, “My heart is beating, do you feel the same?”
“It’s a little song about falling stupidly in love,” laughs Caroline. “We were thinking of all the times when we had that feeling. You try to deny it in the beginning, but you can’t stop thinking of this person.”
For Icona Pop, there’s ultimately no better ritual than friendship.
“It’s okay to not be okay, but still go out and dance,” Caroline leaves off. “It’s okay to be where you are right now. Find your rituals, find your friends, and find your energy.”
As if finishing Caroline’s thought, Aino concurs, “Go dance, move your body, meet people, hug, kiss, and don’t hide.”
Icona Pop Links:
Official: https://www.iconapop.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iconapop
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iconapop/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iconapop