The year has truly begun when I am caught off-guard by a new release. For 2026, this has been Lueenas' Tender Anger. I had never before heard of the Copenhagen based duo but was intrigued when I saw that Rikke Emilie List (Konvent) contributed vocals to three of the tracks from their upcoming release. I pressed play, not sure quite what I was about to hear, and was immediately arrested. "Vølve", the track which opens the album, is an amalgamation of deep strings, guttural vocals, and frigid ambience, creating an atmosphere of somber oppression and anguished expression, a yearning to be free that is, somehow, still bound in a vivid darkness. Suffice it to say, I had to keep listening and as I dove deeper and deeper into Tender Anger, I had understood how special what I had discovered was.
Tender Anger, which we are premiering here in full, is, like its name, a study in contradictions. At its core, it is an experimental ambient album, composed mainly of strings (both deep and vibrant) but studded with warm static, and cavernous silences. But it feels as if, were you to add distortion to it, you'd suddenly discover a funeral doom album around the corner. There is something about its ponderous heaviness, the way it unfurls its ideas, that sets it apart from other ambient works and reveals the throbbing, metallic heart at the center of the release.
"Vølve" is a natural example of this, but check out "Canis Lupus" as well. Imagine those deep contrabass chords played with undulating, messy vibrations and feedback. Would you not then have a REZN track? Or even Pallbearer? And, indeed, "Canis Lupus" introduces some of those fuzzy effects near it center, when a tortured...something (is that a guitar? I'm not sure) pierces through the darkness. But even as they allow this heavier expression, Lueenas are ever fascinated with not overdriving their sound, allowing resonances and silences that are otherwise drowned in the heavier styles to really come to the front.
The album that's created is a wonderful study in shade and light, an album that channels time in different ways, creating melancholic rhythms and expressions. It's one of my favorite discoveries of the last few months and an album that I am sure is going to stick with me all through the year. Let it wash over you and dive deep into the velvety, cold abyss of Tender Anger. It's a ride you won't get anywhere else.