Perhaps, like Miley Cyrus with “Something Beautiful,” Laufey would prefer to see the brighter side of life right now, at a time when it feels particularly dark. Hence, the title for her inaugural single of 2025, “Silver Lining.” And yes, it’s the first indication of the musical/thematic direction she’ll be taking for her third album (with her last one, Bewitched, released in 2023). Which is to say, more silky-smooth vocals set against dreamy, jazzy instrumentals.
To complement the inherent wistfulness and nostalgia of her musical style, the Jason Lester-directed video takes place against the backdrop of a prom-like masquerade (prom-like mainly due to the decorations and some people standing awkwardly in corners). Laufey enters the space as though she’s Alice going down the rabbit hole, wearing a strapless, metallic-y gown as she appears to be searching for someone particular at the party.
The opening verse establishes the motif Laufey explores throughout “Silver Lining,” which is that she has, in fact, gone down the rabbit hole, “falling in bad habits/Staring into the abyss/Drowning in red wine and sniffing cinnamon.” She then describes, “We’ve been kissing on the playground/Acting like little kids/Making dirty jokes and getting away with it.” Just further proof that morality is a ruse typically enforced by the ultimately amoral Establishment.
To accentuate that notion, the appearance of a giant devil’s head crafted of papier-mâché is homed in on just before Laufey dives into her sensuous chorus, “So, I propose/It’s long overdue/When you go to hell, I’ll go there with you too/And when we’re punished/For being so cruel/The silver lining’s I’ll be there with you.” It’s a sentiment not unlike the various iterations of memes that posit, “If I go to hell, at least I’ll be with all my friends.” But in this case, Laufey will be with her lover. Something that Orpheus likely would have preferred if he knew that he was going to end up looking back at Eurydice like a goddamn mistrustful fool.
It’s around this portion of the video that the revelers start to get a bit freakier, with the masks they’re wearing paraded on more full display (including a particularly standout leaf mask). As the crowd sways back and forth together to music that faintly recalls the backing notes to Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” Laufey continues to glance around the room as though she’s searching for her beloved, the one she keeps talking about in this song. Standing in the center of the dance floor as the other partiers circle around her making “untoward” movements, she herself joins in the dance. This means doing a trust fall and allowing herself to be “passed around” in the circle as she recounts, “Never been calm or collected/No one ever called me sweet/What a miracle, I found a darling/I met you at the worst time/Fell in love on a whim/Now we pirouette in fields of rosy sin.”
And yes, that is precisely what Laufey proceeds to keep doing, even if her version of “sin” looks fairly chaste. Granted, the ghoulish effect of the masked merrymakers is not without its merit in terms of getting the idea of “wickedness” across. This, in large part, thanks to Laufey’s twin sister, Júnía Lín (a.k.a. Junia Lin), who serves as Laufey’s right-hand woman/creative director. But the person to thank for the increasingly “debauched” (almost “Thriller”-esque, in fact) choreography is Masha Cherezova. Yet it is during the apex of this “devil” dancing that Laufey seems to be shaken from her reverie, clocking the exit and leaving “Wonderland,” as it were, to follow her instincts toward a sign that reads, “I Scream Parlour.” Rushing down the stairs where the sign is pointing, she sees a man in a clown mask standing behind the bar, ready to serve her up a sundae (with a cherry on top, naturally). But more significant than that is how Laufey at last sees the object of her affection sitting at one of the tables.
So it is that the final scene is of Laufey sitting next to her “sweetheart” (/fellow “sinner”) in the banquette seat. The two basking in the glow of the imaginary hellfire they can practically feel on their skin…if they keep going down this path together. Of course, they’re going to have to get a lot more fucked up than a masked ball if Laufey wants to achieve this “silver lining.”
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