Norwegian duo Smerz have announced the release of Believer, their debut album, coming on 26 February 2021 via XL Recordings. The announcement is accompanied by a music video for the title track. “The lyrics for this song were written over a period of almost two years,” the duo recall. “So it ended up having a natural development parallel to our lives.”
‘Believer’ is another taste from the forthcoming album that pushes Smerz far beyond their previous EP releases, 2017’s Okey and 2018’s Have Fun. Since releasing the ‘Believer’ trailer back in October 2020 followed by a video for the tracks ‘I don’t talk about that much/Hva hvis’, the duo of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt have slowly revealed a new auditory world. The duo meld sonic touchstones from their youth, like musicals and classical music, with swirling, trance-indebted synth lines and hip-hop plus R&B vocals that is distinctly Smerz.
The video Smerz have released is for the album’s title track and is the third video for the project to be directed by Benjamin Barron (who also directed the artwork,) with costumes by Bror August and starring Smerz.