Sondre Lerche has always been a romantic. Whether it be the songs he wrote as a teen for his critically acclaimed 2001 debut, Faces Down, or starring as the love-lorn Christian in the Norwegian stage production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. In 2026, though, his love of, well, love is shot through with a kind of defiance.

“There’s a dissonance between the increasingly dystopian world we live in and finding beauty and peace in your private life,” he says. “It feels almost like a paradox that I’m blessed to have landed in a life and a love that is very meaningful and true. And, at the same time, it feels impossible to write a love song without taking into account the unspeakable things that are happening in the world. Falling in love feels more and more like an act of defiance.”

The result is Lerche’s 11th studio album, Acrobats, an eight-song suite that pingpongs between joy and introspection, loss and love — directly informed by his work on the stage. “Acting in a musical you have to find a way to project really big, and yet ground it in something true, which is such a challenge, especially when you’re new to it,” he says. “There's no room for subtlety. And I think that stuck with me into the process of recording Acrobats: daring to be very clear and bombastic in every choice, and rooting it in sincerity and tenderness.”

Recorded across nine studios with a gaggle of creatives, it’s a perhaps more sobering followup up to 2022’s Avatars of Love — although no less brimming with passion. The record was preceded by his Turning Up The Heat Again EP, released earlier this year as a palette cleanser, with songs from the same sessions and cycle.