7ebra’s How To Land A Plane turns late-20s chaos into pop

By Grace Kim

7ebra’s 12-track second album, How To Land A Plane, is out now through PNKSLM Recordings. The Swedish twins Inez and Ella Johansson open it with “Dinner and a Movie,” an indie-pop song with an infectious chorus, intertwined vocals and a guitar line that first suggests romance.

The song’s lyrics turn elsewhere. The sisters explain that it’s “about postponing the journey home until you’ve ended up feeling terrible, ridiculous and considerably poorer.” That contrast supplies the album’s mechanism: an immediately memorable surface carries the indignities of staying out too late, making questionable decisions and facing the embarrassment that follows.

The title extends the joke into a governing metaphor. Adulthood resembles an aircraft handed over without instructions, while the sisters write about reaching their late 20s as other people expect a settled life. Finding a job, paying rent and establishing stability can still feel practically impossible.

What does the album change for 7ebra?

It gives the duo a broader scale than their 2023 debut, Bird Hour. That earlier record favored delicate guitar arrangements, unusual melodies and vocals sealed inside its own world; the new one opens out with buzzing synthesizers (electronic instruments that generate sound), persistent rhythms and more direct expressions of the confusion that comes with growing older.

The sisters approach this material with humour, frustration and musical curiosity. For the twins, the practical change is a clearer instrumental palette: Inez handles vocals and guitar, while Ella contributes vocals, keyboards and drum machine (a programmed source of percussion).

The album contains 12 tracks. In order, they are:

• “Magical Thinking”
• “Dinner and a Movie”
• “Forming” — Inez’s love of Elliott Smith informs its double-tracked vocals (one vocal layered twice), haunting melodies and a focus on shame and vulnerability. It shares “Dinner and a Movie”’s fascination with the uncomfortable things people discover about themselves.
• “I Have To Buy Stuff” — 7ebra address consumer culture’s contradiction: rejecting purchases while still wanting more. Inez works a reference to Liam Neeson’s Taken into the lyrics, giving financial frustration a pop-cultural edge.
• “15 With Me”
• “Lime Green Jello” — Inez developed its ideas while working at a cemetery, pulling weeds and cleaning gravestones. The work prompted questions about personality, jealousy and how other people might perceive her.
• “Normal Song”
• “Bored Like a Dog” — The song gradually builds from repetitive work toward a fuzzed-out climax (a distorted musical peak).
• “I Feel a Mean Wind Blowing”
• “Night Smog” — The sisters draw on the television series Severance, whose unsettling portrait of corporate life also inspired this short, eerie song. It combines ideas from the show with imagery from a mysterious pharmaceutical laboratory near their Malmö home.
• “Patient Boy” — Its title references Fugazi’s “Waiting Room.” The song examines the difficulty of loving someone through mental health struggles.
• “A Lucky Star”

Personal experience runs through the material, but 7ebra do not let it harden into confessional weight. Their unusual hooks and unexpected arrangements keep even the introspective songs engaging. The sisters’ relationship is central to that approach: as twins, they have developed a creative understanding that lets their voices and musical ideas interact naturally.

That chemistry helped establish 7ebra in Sweden’s independent music scene. The band has drawn attention from Pitchfork, Clash, DIY and The Sunday Times, and has performed across Europe, the United States and Japan. They have appeared at SXSW, Sziget and End of the Road, and shared stages with Arab Strap, Future Islands and Teleman.

Their autumn 2026 headline tour (the principal run of shows) spans Sweden, the UK and Europe. November still has three listed dates:

• November 18, 2026 — Berlin, Germany — Schokoladen
• November 26, 2026 — Nyon, Switzerland — La Paranthèse
• November 28, 2026 — Venlo, Netherlands — De Donkere Dagen Festival

The three November dates provide the next test, with the expanded electronics and blunt songwriting meeting a live audience. For listeners, the record’s offer is specific: 7ebra use pop hooks to make late-20s instability discussable, without pretending adulthood has supplied an instruction manual.