8/10

Swedish alternative rock outfit Valvet return with 'Mirrors & Ecstasy', a four-track EP that cements their status as one of the most compelling young bands reshaping Scandinavian indie-rock. What they deliver here is a fully realised emotional landscape, built on dynamic arrangements, layered guitars, and harmonies that feel like they’re holding back a flood.

Valvet have always been students of atmosphere, but 'Mirrors & Ecstasy' is where they step into mastery. These songs move like weather fronts by swelling and tightening before breaking open in bursts of colour. Yet despite the sonic variety, the project stands as a single, unified arc; unveiling a portrait of introspection in motion, painted in urgent strokes.

Their early-released single 'Mountains' kicks things off with a towering sense of scale. It’s Valvet at their most cinematic with drums echoing and harmonies rising like a flare from the dark. The song’s emotional core of struggling toward clarity even when the horizon feels unreachable embodies the EP’s most resonant theme of internal battles fought quietly, but intensely.

'Half Measure' drops the temperature immediately. Haunting, skeletal, and full of open space, it’s the EP’s most introspective moment. The vocal delivery feels close enough to touch, floating over pulses of guitar that sound like unanswered questions.

Then 'Giving It Up' arrives, a sharp and unexpectedly uplifting shift. This track bursts forward with infectious alt-rock energy, where resilience becomes a rallying cry rather than a whispered confession. Its chorus lands like a jolt of electricity, the kind that reminds you why guitars, drums, and unfiltered feeling remain a timeless combination.

Finally, 'Falling' throws us straight into turbulence. The band lean shifting tempos, churning guitars, and vocals that teeter between vulnerability and defiance. It feels like the soundtrack to a freefall you’re half-choosing to take. From the first chorus, you hear a group unafraid to let emotion drive the architecture of their sound.

Across all four tracks, Valvet’s strength is their ability to merge emotional weight with melodic clarity. Their influences of alt-rock giants with a taste for atmosphere are present, but never overshadowing. Instead, the band channels their inspirations into music that broods without sinking, and that reaches upward even while peering inward.

'Mirrors & Ecstasy' is their most confident statement yet. A storm of introspection wrapped in soaring choruses, it marks the band as one of Sweden’s most exciting rising exports.