Laufey, an Icelandic singer known for her Jazz-pop music, released her third and latest album, A Matter of Time, on August 22, 2025, and in my opinion, it is her best album yet because of the maturity that she incorporates along with the frankness about her messier and more vulnerable side that she exposes through her songs.  Here’s a ranking of the songs, from best to worst:

A Cautionary Tale

“A Cautionary Tale” is the eleventh song on the album. Like a lot of the songs in this album, Laufey deviates slightly from her typical whimsical style to write a more mature and heartbreaking song. While she has written multiple breakup songs before, I like this one the best because of how it dives into her experiences like she’s writing a fairytale. The music also helps set the mood of the song, switching between loud and emotional to soft and resigned at times, which I think really helps emphasize her point.

Too Little, Too Late

“Too Little, Too Late΅ is the seventh song of the collection. This song is about her regrets of leaving someone now that she’s hearing news of his engagement to someone new. I wasn’t going to rank this as high up, but the inclusion of the tune of “Bewitched,” a love song she wrote for her second album, Bewitched, significantly changed how I viewed the song. Being reminded of the sweet and loving lyrics from the song really drove in the heartbreak that she was conveying.

Castle in Hollywood

“Castle in Hollywood” is the fourth song from this album. It talks about a friendship breakup, and the nostalgia and heartbreak that Laufey experiences to this day thinking about it. I like this song a lot because I feel like it could be a lot more relatable to a lot more people compared to songs about romantic breakups.

Forget-Me-Not

“Forget-Me-Not” is the ninth song in A Matter of Time. Although it originally sounds like another love song, Laufey wrote it to actually be a love letter to her homeland of Iceland, and how she misses it after she left it to chase her dreams in the US. I really love this song because of its whimsical yet melancholic music. Laufey also included lines in the chorus in Icelandic, declaring her love for her country no matter where she went, which I thought was a nice touch. 

Sabotage

“Sabotage” is the last song in the album, unless you count the bonus track. I wasn’t expecting to like this song so much more than the others, but the way that Laufey conveyed the anxiety through the jarring cacophony of instrumental music in the background, along with the anxiety-ridden lyrics, was really different from her other songs released prior.

Snow White

“Snow White” is the third song on her album. This is arguably the saddest song of the whole collection. The song dives into her deepest, most private insecurities, of how she would never be good enough for the beauty standards of this world, and consequently, be able to make it far in her career. The song is so heartbreakingly beautiful. Unfortunately, it is also relatable to most, if not all, of her women listeners. 

Mr. Eclectic

“Mr. Eclectic” is the 12th song of A Matter of Time. This one didn’t stand out to me as much. The sassy energy I got from the song, however, really did help. The song critiques the men who act pretentious by quoting famous poets and musicians to patronize her. The whole song seems like Laufey is exasperatingly rolling her eyes at these sorts of men, making it much more fun to listen to for me.

Tough Luck

“Tough Luck” is the tenth song of the album. This song was released earlier as a single prior to the release of the whole album. It’s much more different than her usual songs, as it goes into her feelings of rage rather than love or regret like she usually has in her breakup songs. She does not hold back at all in this song, and it is refreshing to hear these lyrics without her trying to soften her hurt feelings over someone.

Lover Girl

“Lover Girl” is the second song of the collection. This was also another song that was released before the rest of the album. I did enjoy this song a lot, from its jazzy tunes to its general energy, and the incorporation of the slight anxiety over her dependence on his presence. 

Cuckoo Ballet

“Cuckoo Ballet” is the interlude and eighth song of A Matter of Time. I really wanted to rank this higher, but the other songs really had it beat. This doesn’t mean I didn’t like “Cuckoo Ballet.” The song has such a whimsical mood that makes it hard to dislike. It reminds me of old Disney songs because of its elegance and fairytale-like mood. 

Clean Air

“Clean Air” is the thirteenth song in the lineup. In this song, Laufey goes into how her environment and atmosphere have been so much cleaner now that whoever she wrote about is gone. She describes being with him like a harsh winter, with lines like “sweeter pastures wait for me like a lover.” I also found it amusing how she jarringly dropped a few swear words in the chorus, considering she rarely uses any curse words in most of her songs.

Clockwork

“Clockwork” was the first song on the album. It wasn’t as different from her typical style of lyrics and concepts as the other ones were. I still like it, however, as this is one of the few more jazzy songs in the entire album. 

Carousel

I don’t particularly think that “Carousel,” the fifth song of the album, is bad, but it just didn’t affect me. I just don’t have anything to say about it except for the fact that it isn’t bad.

Silver Lining

“Silver Lining” is the sixth song in the lineup. I saw a lot of love for it online, as it was released as a single beforehand, and so I tried to love it as much as others, but it really didn’t have that effect on me. The song goes into how she’d literally follow her lover to Hell, and how the “silver lining” of being in there would be that she would be in there with him. Honestly, I couldn’t get behind that thought process, but the background music did make up for that.

Seems Like Old Times

“Seems Like Old Times” is the bonus track of the album. I don’t think the song is bad or anything; it just didn’t have the same impact as the other songs that came before it.

Conclusion

A Matter of Time covers a large variety of different songs with different concepts and meanings, and genres. From jazzy swing to fairytale-like melancholy, I think this album has the potential to be liked by a larger number of people than she has now.