Kim Vestin’s Phoenix is the kind of album that emerges slowly, softly, with the unshakeable sense that something long dormant has finally begun to breathe again. Released November 14, the project is deeply personal, co-produced with her partner Love Sivik and crafted largely in the intimate stillness of their home studio in Farsta. The setting matters. You can hear the quiet rooms, the late-night hours, the hum of a world sleeping while Kim writes her way back into herself. Though rooted in indie pop, the album is a fluid body of work that drifts through jazz edges, chamber-pop strings, electronic shadows, and the dusty warmth of country. Yet it never feels scattered. Instead, it feels like an artist gathering every piece of her history—musical, emotional, physical—and reforging them into something luminous.
The album opens with “Another Night,” a drifting, moody introduction that sets the emotional temperature for the rest of the record. From the first few notes, Kim’s voice sits close, softened by breath, carrying weariness and longing in equal measure. The song feels like a window cracked open on a cold Stockholm evening—fog slipping in, memories slipping out. It’s a portrait of someone caught between restlessness and resignation, a recurring theme throughout the album. The production is delicate yet cinematic, a careful blend of minimalism and celestial lifts. You hear the influence of Radiohead in the understated tension and a touch of Lana Del Rey in the way the melancholy stretches itself across the melody. “Another Night” feels suspended in time, and by the end of it, listeners understand they’re stepping into a story about rebirth—not loud or triumphant, but honest and slow-burning.
“Every Little Thing” continues the emotional unravelling, but with a different glow. Built with a subtle mix of acoustic warmth and atmospheric electronics, the track examines the invisible weight of ordinary days. It’s a song about accumulation—of fears, of hopes, of the tiny pieces of ourselves we give away or hold too tightly. Kim’s early musical foundation, rooted in that gifted childhood piano, comes through clearly here. Her playing is graceful and restrained, but expressive in a way that suggests years of confiding in the keys when words weren’t enough. There’s a tenderness in the way she constructs this song, a patience that mirrors her creative journey. Each note feels like a step forward after a long pause, carrying the imprint of someone who has spent years waiting for the moment she could return to what she loves.
Then comes “They Will Never Find You,” one of the most striking tracks on the album. It’s atmospheric, eerie, and imaginative, a place where the album’s cinematic ambition fully unfurls. Kim’s rural roots in Ångermanland echo here—the vastness, the wilderness, the sense of disappearing into landscapes larger than oneself. The song blurs the line between escape fantasy and emotional confession. Its lyrical themes hover between wanting to vanish and wanting to be found, the paradox at the core of longing for transformation. The production draws from the grand, sweeping language of Pink Floyd and the intimate, trembling emotionality of ANOHNI & The Johnsons. It is a track that haunts long after it ends, a reminder that freedom often begins in the shadows where we’re not quite sure who we are yet.
At the centre of the album sits its namesake, “Phoenix.” This is the moment where the slow simmer of the previous tracks ignites into something more resolute. Kim doesn’t erupt in flames; instead, she rises with a quiet, determined glow. The song wrestles with the desire to become someone else, to shed the versions of ourselves shaped by hardship, absence, or silence. Her back injury and the unplanned break it forced become an unspoken ghost in this track—felt but not explicitly referenced. The arrangement swells and recedes like a tide, mirroring the emotional process of reclaiming one’s voice. The song is neither an ending nor a beginning, but a reminder that rising is a motion we repeat again and again, sometimes quietly, sometimes painfully, always necessarily.
“Who’s Gonna Come for Me,” already released as a single, stands out as one of the album’s emotional peaks. It is vulnerable in a way that feels almost raw, a song about waiting for rescue while learning that sometimes rescue comes from within. Kim’s vocals carry a trembling strength—fragile, but unwavering in their honesty. The track reflects the feeling of raising young children while simultaneously raising oneself back into music. The question in the title is sincere and rhetorical, echoing the experience of many artists who create in the margins of fatigue, responsibility, and self-doubt. Yet there’s hope woven through it, a quiet acceptance that growth sometimes requires being alone with your fears long enough to understand them.
“Just in Time,” arriving shortly before the full album, shifts the tone toward something gentler and more redemptive. It’s a breath of soft light after the heavier introspection of earlier tracks. The melody opens like a slow sunrise, warmed by subtle country influences and the organic texture of acoustic strings. Kim sings as though she’s finally found moments worth arriving for—fleeting, delicate, but real. The song tells a story of catching oneself mid-fall, of finding grace at the last possible moment. It’s one of her strongest vocal performances, emotionally grounded and beautifully understated.
“Beginning and End” brings the album into deeper philosophical waters. Themes of cycles, rebirth, and identity weave through the lyrics, echoing the album title in a quieter, more reflective way. The song feels like it sits outside of time, existing in the liminal space between who she was and who she’s becoming. The arrangements here lean into chamber pop—gentle strings, soft brass, a sense of weightlessness that invites introspection. Kim seems to be contemplating the larger narrative of her life, the places where things broke and the places where she began again.
Finally, the album closes with “Save Your Goodbyes,” Kim’s favourite track—and for good reason. This is the only song where she kept her original demo vocal, imperfections and all. Those imperfections become its greatest strength. The song feels like a voice memo from the heart, preserved in its purest form. The music video accompanying it adds another layer of emotional clarity, but even without visuals, the track stands as a quiet masterpiece. The intimate production, the trembling vocal edges, the lyrical surrender—it all converges into a closing chapter that feels both final and open-ended. “Save Your Goodbyes” isn’t about endings. It’s about refusing to let go of the parts of yourself that still need to speak.
With Phoenix, Kim Vestin transforms. The album is a testament to resilience, imagination, and the unstoppable impulse to create beauty even in the most difficult seasons. It is tender, cinematic, soul-stirring, and deeply human. A rising, not in flames, but in truth.
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