One Good Tooth

The Knife don’t make music you put on in the background. A Tooth for an Eye announces itself like a locked door being kicked open—the lead single from Shaking the Habitual, their first record in six years, and it sounds like nothing they’ve done before while sounding entirely, unmistakably like them. The percussion feels clinical. The vocals feel extracted. Whatever warmth existed in Silent Shout has been stripped out and replaced with something colder and more deliberate about its coldness.

The video is children playing—no adults, no hierarchy, just kids negotiating space and rules between themselves. On paper that sounds unbearable. In practice it lands like a quiet provocation. Karin and Olof Dreijer are asking something about power and not answering, which is the only honest position.

I’ve been listening to Silent Shout since 2006 and still don’t feel like I’ve reached the bottom of it. I’m not in a hurry with this one either.