“Rather die in your arms than die lonesome,” Lykke Li tells the subject of “Love of Out Lust” in the first words of the song. It’s that sense of drama that makes the song resonate so powerfully, making it one of the 24 year-old singer and songwriter’s most impressive pieces of work to date. When Danny, Max and I spotted Lykke at the inaugural Broken Bells show last year, little did we know she was hiding out in Echo Park, working on a follow up to 2008′s Youth Novels she’s described pretty accurately as more “hypnotic, more psychotic and more primal” than its predecessor. “Love Out of Lust” puts Lykke in the foreground, set against a Phil Spector-like backdrop of sparse percussion, spacey atmospherics and plenty of open space. And as “Little Bit” or “Time Flies” were before it, it’s is as effecting as any love song in recent memory. Ms. Li will be rocking a sold-out show at the El Rey on March 9th, but for the rest of us, Wounded Rhymes is available here.

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Download: Lykke Li – “Love Out of Lust”