Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir’s third studio album, “A Matter of Time,” was released on Aug. 22, 2025. This album features jazzy beats and the mood constantly goes up and down; one minute you’re up, singing along with the lyrics enchantingly and the next moment you’re the gloomiest you can be.
“I’ve taken my diary and turned it into an album of songs, delving into the whole range of emotions – from the beautiful to the ugly – that one experiences as life and love unfold in time,” Laufey said on an X post.
The first track of the album, “Clockwork,” sets the tone for the album’s overall sound. The track features piano and clocks ticking in the background, signifying that time is passing. The overall story of the track is to show Laufey catching feelings with some of her closest friends. The instrumentals are pleasant, making this track an excellent opening to the album.
The second track of the album is “Lover Girl.” This track was released as a single on June 25, 2025; it is the third out of the four singles released from the album. The song is known best by its popularity out of the entire album, having over 62 million streams on Spotify alone.
“The hardest part of loving someone is being away from them. This is that story,” Laufey said.
“Snow White” is the third track on the album, after being released as a single on Aug. 7, 2025; it is the last single released from the album before its release. This track faces Laufey’s voice in her head, which she calls her mirror, likely referencing the magic mirror in “Snow White,” which says negative things about her. She’s well aware that these are untrue, but she can’t get it to stop.
Coming up next is the fourth track is “Castle in Hollywood.” In this track, Laufey reflects on the ends of past friendships. Laufey uses many metaphors to describe these friendship endings. I believe that this is one the top three tracks on this album, considering how good the flow of the song is.
The fifth track of the album is “Carousel.” This track is about people seeing Laufey’s messy side. The instrumentals are by far the best part of this track, it contains very light feeling instrumentals, it makes the listener feel cleaner on the inside, even though the message is the opposite of what it feels like. As good as this track is, it’s definitely nowhere close to being one of the top tracks of the album.
The sixth track, “Silver Lining,” is also the first single Laufey released from the album on April 3, 2025. This track talks about simply being free and being able to express yourself truly, especially to their relationships and not having that be a problem. This track has a slower tempo compared to the other ones, also having a vocally-strong chorus, which is likely why it was the first single released.
The album’s seventh track is “Too Little, Too Late.” This track is by far the most unique on the entire album, that is because this track is written from the perspective of a man who is hesitant about asking his crush out and this piles onto him until it becomes too late. Even though this track is heavily unique, it is definitely not close to being the best.
“[Too Little, Too Late] was one of those that I was rolling over at 2 a.m. being like, ‘Oh ****, I need to add these lyrics.’ It’s not written from my perspective, it’s written from a male perspective. That was a practice of understanding characters and another person,” Laufey said.
The eighth track of the album is an interlude called “Cuckoo Ballet.” Cuckoo Ballet is an all instrumental, heavily based upon Laufey playing a grand variety of instruments, those being wind, percussion and string instruments. Instrumental only interludes are not usually as exciting, but not this one, this one makes you travel through the previous tracks, mainly “Lover Girl” and “Snow White.” Some other styles come from her second album, “Bewitched,” which makes it almost carry some sorts of nostalgia to it.
Coming up next is “Forget-Me-Not,” track nine of the album. This track is about Laufey not forgetting her heritage from Iceland. She includes two lines in Icelantic, to show her validating her Icelandic roots. The track is indeed beautifully constructed, it is very calming for the first several minutes of the track and when it reaches the last minute, she becomes brighter, her voice, her instrumentals it all becomes stronger and more appealing, overpowering the rest of the track.
The 10th track of the album is “Tough Luck.” This was released as a single on May 10, 2025. This track talks poorly about her ex-boyfriend and how she’s so delighted that she left him. The bridge is what gets people, it’s fast paced and ejecting so much emotion onto the listener. This is one of those tracks that has many fans coming back to it because of how satisfying it is to hear Laufey’s rant. This track truly blasts off with her harsh emotions, something she doesn’t do with the rest of the album. For someone who loves angry-intentioned music, this is a must listen to.
The 11th track, “A Cautionary Tale” is Laufey saying time’s running out, we are almost at the end. This track is by far the most emotional track. The track stands out if you’re looking for something more slow paced and sad to listen to and the bridge is the part that many find the most heartbreaking part of the song,
“Oh, inside you, there’s a guiltless child who never saw his mother smile / A boy who had no sense of home, believes he’s better off alone” Laufey said.
The 12th track of the album is “Mr. Eclectic.” The story behind the track is in the name itself, it is about people simply not being original enough to develop their own taste. It’s about people attempting to be performative. Laufey’s response to these people was to call them out. This track is really well structured, it was also trending tremendously popular on TikTok since the platform partnered with Laufey to create an in-app experience to promote her new album and because of this, the song gained lots of admiration.
The 13th track of the album is “Clean Air.” This track is highly upbeat, it’s about distancing the negativity for her, which in the song’s terms it would be her unclean air, so she can breathe clean air within her atmosphere. This track’s upbeatness mixed with its metaphors makes it stand out.
The 14th track of the album is “Sabatoge.” This track makes the ending of the album sound extremely satisfying. The sabotage is the distorted cello that she plays, it’s so unexpected that it’s enough to jumpscare you when you’re listening to it the first time. The track unleashes everything only using instruments. “Sabatoge” showcases choir voices within the background, mixed with the heavy drums banging shows Laufey straight up unleashing everything in the very end.
“A Matter of Time” is a big hit of emotions unleashed at once, the best tracks definitely being the ones with the strongest emotions like “Tough Luck,” “Castle in Hollywood” or even “Lover Girl.” Each track is significant in their own ways. Each track manages to be unique and not sound like a repeat of one another, each track stays fresh.
