All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend

Steeped in gelid electronic textures, pulsing beats, and yearning modalities, Aurora's All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend also blends vivid lyrical imagery with parts fantasy and heartache for a haunting full-length debut. The 12-track album by Norwegian singer and songwriter Aurora Aksnes includes two European charters from her prior EP, 2015's Running with the Wolves. Both gray-shaded numbers about being out of place, "Runaway" and "Running with the Wolves" turn out to be the average of what the substantial LP offers rather than standouts. With a soundscape that finds danger lurking in the corners, "Runaway" has echoing water droplet effects, creeping screeches, and windswept transitions among its sparse arrangement and lyrics like "I was running far away, would I run off the world some day?" What sets Aurora apart from the field of dark, spare electro-pop (Lorde, Lykke Li) are elaborate, soaring melodies and a pure, lilting soprano that on several tracks seems presented with mini