"Alibi": ZKIN Unveils Their Second EP

About the Artist

Swedish dark pop duo ZKIN, Malin Jeareus and Jonas Gustavsson, release their sophomore EP, Alibi, featuring five tracks produced and co-written with Simon Söderberg, formerly of Ghost. Moreover, the Linköping-based duo blend dark pop, synthpop, industrial, jazz, punk, and rock, drawing influence from Pink Floyd, Massive Attack, and Nine Inch Nails. Now, Alibi marks a bold step in ZKIN’s evolving sound.

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The EP

Breaking Me Down opens the EP with a slow, tense unraveling. Strings pluck like a heartbeat skipping, and percussion seeps in one by one, building a quiet dread. The lyrics, “No one warned me… the man is sweet but a nightmare,” captures the slow erosion of one’s light in a toxic relationship, making you feel the ache of a fractured identity.

Then Guilty pulses with a heavier, urgent percussion, almost like a racing heart. It taunts with every beat: “the guilty look away,” almost accusing, and you feel the tension coil tighter around your chest. After that, Shadows steps in with eerie tablas and whispering voices, “meet me in the shadows where all our secrets hide,” carrying the sense of forbidden knowledge, even questioning what we keep from God.

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Temptation follows with a pulse that throbs through the veins, sultry, charged, yet restrained—“put your hands through her hair” echoes desire that can’t quite touch its mark. Lastly, The Battle of Letting Love Go closes the EP with harrowing intensity, clashing and consuming, leaving you drained yet wide-eyed.

Finally, Alibi moves like a flickering candle, intimate and uneasy, reflecting guilt, desire, and half-whispered confessions. Every track feels like a hidden truth, like smoke curling from a secret flame, carrying the weight of everything we try to hide and everything we almost confess.

Listen to the EP here: