The Knife

Silent Shout, the third album by Swedish brother-sister duo the Knife, adheres closely to a minimalist aesthetic, even as the music’s uniformly cool textures range from strange, bubbling thumps to loud industrial whirls. The title track transforms a relationship into a waking nightmare as Karin Dreijer sings, “In a dream I lost my teeth again/Calling me woman and half man/Yes in a dream all my teeth fell out/A cracked smile and a silent shout.” She sings of proto-feminist situations — a stripper in “Neverland” dancing “for a fancy man/I’ve got a lot of money that burns in my hand,” a woman suppressed by patriarchy in “One Hit.” Meanwhile, Olof Dreijer emits blunted electronics sharply defined against his sister’s wavery, brittle voice, from the schaffel beat underneath “Like a Pen” to the swampy electro riffs surrounding “Marble House.” Silent Shout is an impressively conceptual piece best consumed as a whole, cut by cut. 4 stars.