Oslo’s Ea Othilde shines with a short but sweet collection of rich, moody, hot-n-cold indie rock.
Release date: June 12, 2026 | Koke Plate | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp
Self-love is an oft-overlooked part of the human condition. We spend so much of our lives looking for greener pastures, only to discover it ain’t all it was cracked up to be when we finally get there. We tend to forget that to spread love to others, we have to start on the inside with ourselves, and yet… I can’t help but kick myself for not discovering Oslo, Norway’s 21-year old wunderkind Ea Othilde sooner. Her new EP, You’ll Leave the City, is a thematically and musically rich exploration of finding oneself as a young person in 2026. Her music is melancholy at times, fiery and distorted at others, but this collection of songs never wavers from its core mission statement: in an increasingly fast-paced world, it’s essential to slow down and smell the roses (like the ones in her previous album’s cover art).
Ea and her band have crafted a set of tracks that alternate between icy grunge and heartwarming indie on You’ll Leave the City. Despite her young age, she possesses a lyrical worldview that can find appeal in people of all stripes, right from the opening barnburner “City of Lights”. Between the Slint-ish guitar plunks of the verses and the early Wolf Alice-esque distortion of the choruses, Ea Othilde lays bare her restless lyrical angle:
‘I wanted to drop
Everything in my hands.
Leave it behind,
Finish all my plans.
Give in to the urge,
Life could be somewhere else…’
The swirling instrumentation that then takes over perfectly imagines the titular city as a metallic whirlwind of new sounds and experiences. Ea‘s soft crooning that ends the song off comes across as a defeated sigh after moving day. The efficiency of the music – two verses, two choruses, outro, done – ultimately reflects that of the singer’s consumption of her new surroundings. She’s exhausted, but the listener is swept up and enervated by the maelstrom of sonic layering. Happily, Ea Othilde has much more in store for this brief journey into uncertain times.
“I Forgot You” borrows its grungy vibe and played-straight 6/4 time signature from Soundgarden‘s classic “Fell On Black Days” before its dissonant chorus splits open, wrapping the listener up in brittle guitar and ringing cymbals. The EP’s title is uttered during the first verse – ‘You’ll leave the city, you’ll take this with you/cuz you didn’t leave me, you couldn’t leave me‘ – which is as haunting a line as any here. The ramshackle guitar lead at the end is an effective touch, leaving a bitter taste that symbolizes someone leaving without even trying to talk it out. “Room #21” contains some more devastating revelations from Ea: ‘I wish I didn’t grow up in his anger/Then I wouldn’t be impatient with my lover.’ See what I meant when I said these lyrics have wide-ranging, hard-hitting appeal? Sitting alongside these confessions are eerie, stacked vocal harmonies cooing wordlessly as the instrumentalists shoegaze in place. High, ringing guitar lines enter the fold, adding atmosphere and color to the tapestry Ea weaves around them.
“Florence” boasts the catchiest chorus here, with distinct shades of the ’90s alternative sound informing its singalong nature. ‘You tried to slow me down, I was heading for the ground/Then you watched me come undone in your arms’, she sings as the music flanges and echoes around her. It’s no wonder this was chosen as the EP’s first single, as it features the most holistic pop structure as well as the most memorable tune. Ea and her band have a rare knack for making what could end up as a navel-gazing poor-poor-me act into a defiant, reflective portrait of a young person finding their way in the world – and learning a few things about life in the process.
You’ll Leave the City closes on what may be the biggest surprise here, the swaying, gentle “It Only Makes Me Bitter”. Its baroque pop style is underpinned by a tight drum beat before the vocals are introduced, and they waste no time going straight for the gut punch:
‘You used to be my desire,
Your touch, my skin in the sunset.
You’d keep me up through the night,
Then leave me to rot in my head.
Don’t soften the blow with affection,
It only makes me bitter…’
The juxtaposition of the scorching lyrics with the gorgeous and restrained backing track is nothing short of mesmerizing. As the volume begins to climb in its last leg, Ea Othilde admirably curbs herself and the band, not allowing them to explode into the typical rock crescendo but instead pulling everything back one more time for a hushed ending. ‘You disappear with the sunrise/I’ll wake up and try to forget it/One more nightlong affair/I’ll see you again for the next‘. I almost don’t have the words for this; it’s heartbreaking and lovely and maddening all at once.
Of course, that’s what being a young adult is like, and You’ll Leave the City is one of the more poignant explorations of this topic I’ve heard in quite some time. Each song is bursting with emotions, whether loudly or intimately, and often at the same time. It’s rare to witness an artist coming into their own in real time, but Ea Othilde walks the line of showcasing her influences – the aforementioned caustic rage of early Wolf Alice, the introspection of Elliott Smith, the jaded frustration of PJ Harvey – through stellar production that doesn’t ape but filters and refines. This is music that sits with you and quietly seeps in, affecting you in ways you didn’t expect and bringing up feelings you put on yourself and then buried. Sometimes, Ea says, there are other reasons for why the people we love leave us in the city: they think there’s something better out there, and we stay put, collecting memories of what could’ve been, but with a greater sense of self-love. After all, isn’t that what makes us human?
