- 6th studio album
- 13 tracks
- 7 Mar Perth show
- 4 Aussie dates
Tove Lo has made an entire album about wanting two completely incompatible things at the same time, which might be the most relatable premise in pop this year. The opening track is literally called “a lot of feelings, no solutions”, so at least she’s upfront about it.
ESTRUS, her sixth studio album, landed on 18 September through Pretty Swede Records, the independent label she’s been running since going her own way around 2022’s Dirt Femme. And she is not being coy about how she feels about it: “I think this album is fucking perfect,” she says. “I wrote what I needed to write, not how I wanted to be perceived.”
I think this album is fucking perfect.
Tove Lo
The title is doing a lot of work. In her words: “Estrus is an animal in heat. It’s primal. It’s my mind and my body wanting different things, wanting everything. There’s no good advice on this album… just a lot of feelings, no solutions.”
A Fight That Turned Into an Album
Early in the process, Tove and longtime collaborator Ludvig Söderberg got drunk and yelled at each other about everything going on in their lives, and the shape of the record emerged from that argument. ESTRUS lives inside the mess: the big night, the insecure spiral, the 6am walk home with mascara everywhere, the comedown, and then doing it all again anyway.
- Dancefloor Heartbreak
- Tidy Messy
She recorded it with Söderberg alongside Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser (whose credits include Addison Rae), across Los Angeles, Stockholm and the small Swedish fishing village where she spent summers as a kid. The sound leans on the Swedish indie dance music she grew up with, with The Knife and Robyn named as touchstones. The only feature is Belgian artist Stromae, on “des fleurs”. Before the album dropped, she also put out lead single “I’m your girl right?” and “DNH”.
Side Quest What Does “Estrus” Actually Mean?
Estrus is the phase of the reproductive cycle when many female mammals are fertile and receptive, better known as being “in heat”. Naming a pop album after it is a very Tove Lo move.
The focus track is the closer, “source of life”, which swings between feral, fragile, numb, ecstatic, sad and euphoric while wrestling with whether to keep staying out all night or stay home and have kids. As she puts it on “the bad one”: “Two things can be true.”
Tracklist
- a lot of feelings, no solutions
- I’m your girl right?
- if I could I would
- des fleurs x stromae
- DNH
- F.A.M.T
- I’m the cake
- the bad one
- die for my art with a lonely heart
- are we on a break
- idiot
- roomie
- source of life
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ESTRUS World Tour: Australian Dates
After North America and her biggest UK and European headline shows yet, Tove brings the tour here in March 2027, with Salty supporting. And Perth gets the last word.
Tour dates
| Date | City | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 1 March | Brisbane | Fortitude Music Hall |
| Wednesday 3 March | Melbourne | MCA |
| Friday 5 March | Sydney | Hordern Pavilion |
| Sunday 7 March | Perth 🎉 Home show | Ice Cream Factory |
Tickets are on sale now through Secret Sounds, and you can stream ESTRUS wherever you listen. If you were worried this might be a last-chance tour, relax: she’s vowed to keep making music and touring “until my tits are in my shoes”, which is the most gloriously honest career plan in pop. Honestly? Life goals.
Stay unruly.
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