On Julia, his fifth studio album, Ásgeir steps into new territory by writing his own lyrics for the first time. Long associated with outside collaborators and translations, including work drawn from his father’s poetry, Ásgeir now turns inward. The result is a quietly absorbing record shaped by memory, regret, and forward-looking resolve, all orbiting the album’s titular presence like a familiar ghost.

Musically, Julia stays rooted in the qualities that have defined Ásgeir’s appeal: intricate folk-pop arrangements, patient pacing, and a falsetto that feels more confessional than ornamental. What changes is the emotional proximity. These songs feel closer to the skin, less filtered, and more direct. There is a sense of lived experience here, of thoughts spoken rather than interpreted. Ásgeir has described the process as both unsettling and therapeutic, a necessary step toward finding his own lyrical voice after years of working through others.

That evolution carries extra weight given the arc of his career. His Icelandic-language debut, Dýrð í dauðaþögn, became the best-selling debut album in Icelandic history, later reintroduced internationally as In the Silence. Subsequent releases including Afterglow, Bury The Moon, and Time On My Hands refined his sound and expanded his audience, earning steady support from press and radio across Europe and beyond.

In recent years, Ásgeir has also re-centered his creative life around performance. Nearly 70 solo shows across Europe, the Nordics, and Iceland, along with appearances alongside the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and an Arte TV session recorded in Berlin, have sharpened his sense of intimacy and space. Performing in small churches and unconventional rooms has reinforced the emotional clarity that now defines Julia. Even his forays outside the album format, including writing music for a Kafkaesque stage production at Reykjavik City Theatre, reflect an artist drawn to atmosphere and narrative.

With Julia, Ásgeir refocuses on melody and personal storytelling, exploring relationships, aging, hope, and nostalgia. Influences like Leonard Cohen and Daniel Lanois sit comfortably alongside more contemporary touchstones, but the album’s defining voice is his own. It is a measured, thoughtful step forward, one that feels less like reinvention and more like arrival.