GENTS

After ten years of danceable synth hooks and larger-than-life energy, Copenhagen duo GENTS are turning the volume down – and the intimacy up. On their new album Masculinity, Niels Fejrskov Juhl and Theis Vesterløkke trade in lush synthpop for fragile acoustic guitars, storytelling lyrics, and a more stripped-back soundscape. Masculinity explores what it means to be a modern, multifaceted man – a soft, privileged “good guy” who still struggles to live up to his own ideals. The album moves between the personal and the political: from lying in a yoga pose doubting your skills as a father, to being praised for not killing a cat; from splitting the cost of birth control and calling yourself a feminist – to wondering if it actually makes a difference. Though the familiar GENTS wink might still be there, the new almost folk-like songs reveal a different kind of vulnerability — two artists in their thirties, inviting listeners beneath the skin and into their doubts through raw, self-exposing, and seemingly trivial stories. Masculinity is out now on Konkylie.