Nick Helderman

Lena Hessels summons a storm on “crown”

Lena Hessels‘ new song “crown” scorches and struts, one leg planted in cataclysmic industrial atmospherics and the other one in glistened-up bubblegum pop. The song evokes that feeling of discovering your superpowers: a certain menace that’s uprooted into a state of joy. Miraculously, “crown” is club anthem and noise catharsis all jam-packed in one track.

In her young career, Hessels is already adept at tantalizing juxtapositions, something she demonstrated with aplomb on her previous single “mare” as well. She had the following to say on “crown”: When I was little I used to sing stories all the time. At around the age of five, my parents gave me a tiny mp3 recorder, and I recorded myself on that. Just before I started writing the lyrics to “crown”, I found some of those old recordings on my mom’s computer. I got stuck while writing the lyrics, and as a distraction, I listened to this old recording of me singing about knights, castles, horses, and inns. It made sense to me to use that as the main world of the story.”

Hessels is also concise about the vibe she wanted to evoke for “crown”. “My mom thinks this song will be my anthem, I hope one day people will mosh to it, that would be a dream come true. The demo title for this one was “a storm”, I wanted to create a sense of being inside one. High tempo, heavy bass, and sounds that resemble thunder going off in the background.”

Now it is revealed that the Dutch artist will release a series of three EPs in 2022. The first, titled if not now, will be released on 11 February 2022. Safe to say that we’ve got plenty to look forward to.

Listen to “crown” on various streaming platforms. You can follow Lena Hessels on InstagramTwitter, and Facebook.