Review: Laufey’s A Matter of Time
Album Cover for A Matter of Time, Photographed by Emma Summerton
As a fan of Laufey since her LP Everything I Know About Love, I was ecstatic to hear that she was releasing a new album, A Matter of Time. Leading up to the release, her marketing was skillfully mastered, coming true of the expectations that her fans had since her Grammy win in 2024.
She gave her audiences sneak peeks into her album at different popular venues, like the Guggenheim, where she played her new song “Snow White,” which was both beautiful and touching to the heart. Her music video, “Silver Lining,” brought a new excitement to her music; it was romantic, yet added a new layer of campiness with its loud colors and masked dancers.
A Matter of Time is clever, whimsical, and raw. Laufey skillfully crafts a story and continues the narrative throughout every song. She plays into the idea of time, as evidenced by the imagery of a clock on the album cover, and incorporates ticking sounds in several of her songs. Laufey bends time, transporting you into another world, one akin to a fairytale or the romance of a 2000s rom-com.
The opener of the album, “Clockwork,” is the perfect introduction to the world that Laufey creates. With upbeat jazzy tunes, as well as soothing “ding dongs,” which soothe you into hypnosis, you are transported into Laufeyland. This song can best be described as a continuation of the stylistic choices of Jazz icons: Chet Baker and Fred Astaire, with a twist seen in Laufey’s “Winter Wonderland.”
“Lovergirl” is the perfect song to be played when you fall in love or feel like the leading lady of a 2000s rom-com in the city during the spring. It gives you hope, making you ready to dance in happy twirls because of the possibility of love. It is the anthem for the hopeless romantic girlies.
Laufey makes a sudden shift to this happy fantasy, bringing you back to reality. In “Snow White,” Laufey explores self-doubt and what it is like to not feel “good enough” as a woman in a society that sexualizes and tears girls apart. While Laufey sounds like a princess, like the Snow White we envision, she feels like she is falling short of that expectation. When she looks in the mirror, she sees the person society wants her to be: skinny, paler, and gentler. Even though she is called pretty and thinks she is pretty deep down, the mirror tells her lies, making her believe the worst lies that society pushes on her: she is not enough.
“Castle in Hollywood” is a classical Laufey banger; it is her trademark of witty lyrics with interesting tempos that drive the story forward. In this song, she thinks about her old lover, who she thought was her white knight. When this relationship ended, her first heartbreak, it marked the end of her girlhood and her childhood fantasies. Laufey drives this tension between the tenderness in her voice with the contrast of the heavy guitar strumming. As she gets more aware of what happened, her voice begins to change, matching the anger of the guitar, signaling the end of her nativity.
“Carousel” calms you down after the tension of the previous song. It brings the listener back into the fantasy. Laufey’s voice soothes you into comfort, evoking a nighttime lullaby. The song is simple melody-wise, but Laufey’s voice is the focus, with her gentle timbre and breathy high notes, as the background melody creates a tune that circles the same pattern. This, combined, makes an interesting song, showing the genius of Laufey, especially with how she portrays emotion through the contrast and complement of the melody and voice line.
In a classic Laufey way, it would not be an album without a pop-jazz fusion song. In “Silver Linings,” it is upbeat, like “Lover Girl,” while taking influence from her past songs: “From the Start,” “Lovesick,” and “Valentine.” This song feels like a jazzy continuation of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please,” with the idea of Bonnie and Clyde, “it’s us against the world.” Laufey communicates this with the lyrics, “When you go to hell, I’ll go there with you too,” basically saying she would do anything for this love, even if the world falls apart.
Now, my personal favorite of the album, “Too Little, Too Late,” takes you to the center of the heartbreak. Interestingly, Laufey writes this from the male perspective, where it centers on a man reflecting on his past relationship, where he made mistakes, and he’s lost his love for good. Laufey creates a picture of regret, with imagery like being a Jester, the joke, or the person who was made to be a fool during the relationship. It builds up to his ex-lover’s wedding, where he has lost her forever. The song ends with the lyrics, “Whisper vows I’ll never say to you, 'cause it’s too little, all too late.”
Like her last album, Bewitched, Laufey makes an interlude. In “Cuckoo Ballet (Interlude),” she displays her skill as an instrumentalist and how she even focuses on making her music with the intention of performing with orchestras. As a classical music fan, I could hear the influences of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, as well as the romantic period, drawing inspiration from composers like Debussy and Massenet. This interlude is very clever; she pulls tension at different times, while including themes of romanticism, and even adds clock sounds, to make it feel like time is running out, like Cinderella’s clock to midnight.
“Forget-Me-Not” continues the story that Laufey has laid out in “Cuckoo Ballet (Interlude).” It has a ballet feeling, sounding similar to “Swan Lake,” as well as the idea of songs that say goodbye, like the song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, “What's the Use Of Wond’rin’?”. It’s a mourning of the past and wishing for home. I interpreted this two different ways—either she misses her homeland, or loves it forever, even though she is so far away. She sings in her native tongue, Icelandic, something that she has done before in past albums, but this feels more tender and longing for the simpler times of her childhood. It is heartbreaking because there is no resolution by the end of the song; you have to sit in the sadness.
In “Tough Luck,” it is the Laufey power move; she is moving on and spilling things that this lover said to her. She is pulling the classic Taylor Swift Reputation move: calling out her insecure ex-lover. It feels like an awakening from the previous tracks; she is tired of unfulfilling love and knows she deserves better. The best part of this song is how catchy it is, with the lyrics, “ I should congratulate you/Tough luck, my boy, your time is up/Just like you did to me.” Laufey is truly a rhythmic lyrical genius.
After “Tough Luck,” the post-breakup confidence displays through “A Cautionary Tale,” a track of introspection and healing. She looks into not only herself, but also into what made her ex-lover who he was. She knows that she lost herself, but also examines why he was so draining. She explains, “Oh, inside there’s a guiltless child who never saw his mother smile/A boy who had no sense of home/Believes he's better off alone.” She is empathetic to him, but she knows that being with him and trying to heal him hurts her, and she knows that she gave herself up trying to help him.
Then, “Mr. Eclectic” feels like the perfect karma song. It is her “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter type of song. She exposes the mansplaining lover who discredited her experience. She is coming into her own power—for goodness' sake, she has a Grammy! Stylistically, it is a very ‘50s vibe with the “Bum Da Ba Dums” and the classical bossa nova; it feels like something you’d hear Connie Francis or even today’s Samara Joy sing.
I’d say the biggest outlier of the album is “Clean Air,” which has a twang of country, with yodeling. I did not expect Laufey to make a country-esque song, but it makes sense if you look at the trends of mainstream artists having a comeback with country songs. Look at Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan; it worked for them, giving them another audience as pop stars. It is really interesting to see a pop-jazz singer incorporate country into their skillset. I want to see more of this because it is intriguing to see this from her, even though it is not her typical style.
The final song of the album, “Sabotage,” is very similar to Bewitched's last track, “Goddess.” It is her catharsis of releasing her rage and every negative feeling, to achieve peace. She knows that love is not easy, but she does not deserve toxic love, which is justified and sealed with kisses instead of respect. She sees her pattern of a fear of not being lovable and sabotaging every relationship she is in, fearing toxic love. “Sabotage” is her final release from the fury of the storm, and afterwards, she knows she will be okay.
The bonus track, “Seems Like Old Times,” sounds like a song that would be played in a calm environment. It feels like an older record player song, like the ‘50s cartoon of Mickey Mouse dancing. It is the end of the rom-com, it is the happy ending. She has finally found the love she deserves.
Overall, A Matter of Time is a continuation of the ideas Laufey presented in Bewitched, but Laufey takes it a step further, diving deeper into the ideas of self-doubt, regret, love, and reflection.