Jonatan

What’s in a name? In the case of Yung Lean, what initially registered as a sardonic take on post-ironic internet rap tropes was, in fact, a riff on the Swedish rapper’s given name: Jonatan Leandoer Håstad. In the decade-plus since he broke through with 2013’s “Ginseng Strip 2002,” Lean has evolved past his position as Scandinavia’s foremost cloud-rap interpreter, embracing sincerity, transparency, and, more recently, post-punk. (On 2024’s *Psykos*, his first full-length collaboration with Drain Gang CEO Bladee, they channeled Joy Division and The Cure for songs about psychosis and ego death.) The title of his fifth solo album says it all: *Jonatan* is Lean at his rawest, a homecoming after a long, dark night of the soul. Lead single “Forever Yung” plays out like a funeral for his former self: Phoenixes rise from the ashes, masks are taken off, a rickety one-note bassline rattles ahead. A handful of bruised love songs crackle with manic energy and magical-realist details: On “Paranoid Paparazzi,” he raps about pills and lullabies in a voice that sounds like he’s just rolled out of bed, and “Babyface Maniacs” could be the theme song of a future *Badlands* remake: “Infamous murderous couple ridin’ through the drylands/Sugarcane kisses and shotguns, candy cane violence.” But at the emotional crux of *Jonatan* are heavy yet hopeful ballads that put chaos in the rearview—like “Swan Song,” on which Lean singsongs, “I wanna know what it feels like to come down from the trip of a lifetime.”

With a monochromatic, no-wave-inflected new studio album, the Swedish rapper and singer-songwriter attempts to merge his musical identities under one banner.