Jonathan Hultén’s Eyes of the Living Night is a spellbinding blend of folk, rock, and pop that beckons listeners into a vivid dreamscape of resilience, self-discovery, and haunting beauty.
Swedish songwriter Jonathan Hultén, known for the ethereal allure of his 2020 debut Chants From Another Place, is back with his highly-anticipated follow-up, Eyes of the Living Night. The album is an immersive blend of folk, rock, and pop that pulls listeners into a vivid dreamscape of sound and emotion.
Setting the stage is the haunting first single, “Afterlife,” and its striking music video filmed at Sweden’s Westlanda Flygplats. Directed by Jakob Johansson of Kollurud Productions, the video mirrors the song’s exploration of the underworld with evocative, labyrinthine imagery. Hultén describes the track as a journey through a dark and ghostly maze, where hidden treasures - fragments of one’s soul - are rediscovered along the way. “In ‘Afterlife,’ your soul is pulled into the underworld, thrust into a labyrinth with no option but to navigate its cold corridors,” Hultén explains. “Haunted by its ghostly inhabitant intent on draining your life energy, you must press forward. Through this trial, you uncover important emotions and insights - pieces of yourself you had lost.”
Recorded at Stockholm’s Chanting Studios and co-produced with Ola Ersfjord (Lady Blackbird, Tribulation, Monolord), Eyes of the Living Night builds on the introspective folk of Hultén’s debut while expanding into more cinematic terrain. Drawing from influences as diverse as Bert Jansch, John Martyn, Chelsea Wolfe, and Hexvessel, the album weaves together decades of inspiration - from rock and synth-pop to blues and folk - into what Hultén has dubbed “Ambient Dream-grunge.”
This sophomore effort dives deeper into the human spirit, with themes of self-discovery and resilience resonating through each track. Whether shimmering with Nick Drake-like melancholy or embracing the avant-garde edge of contemporaries like Anna Ternheim, the album promises to be a transformative experience.
Jonathan Hultén’s Eyes of the Living Night invites listeners on an odyssey through the shadows and light of the soul, and as “Afterlife” reveals, sometimes, the only way forward is through the labyrinth.