Zara Larsson, courtesy.

Swedish songstress Zara Larsson comes full circle on her fourth studio album, Venus, showing she can bridge the gap between pop anthems and deeply personal love songs.

On her first album since 2021’s Poster Girl, Larsson achieves a musical confidence and a firm grasp in the direction she wants to take her music. For the effort, Larsson enlisted some ace producers and songwriters to hone the sound, and reunited with hitmaker David Guetta, some seven years after their 2016 collaboration, “This One’s For You.”

On Venus, the arrangements are sleek and stylish, and Larsson’s vocals vibrant. The opener, “Can’t Tame Her,” hits all the right notes, unleashing a shot of energy and an undeniable infectiousness. The track fuses an A-ha meets The Weeknd sound in the intro verses that pushes further into the chorus. The shouted backing vocals in the chorus give it just a punky edge for good measure.

Larsson immediately pushes to the opposite end of the spectrum on slow-burning and melodic pop track “More Than This Was.” The beat drops, filled by lush synths and Larsson’s harmonized vocal as the song bursts into the rhythmic pulsing beats of the chorus.

“What if we could have been much more than this was?” Zara Larsson asks.

The Guetta collab, “On My Love,” is an interesting fusion of stripped-down sounds. Larsson’s vocal delivery is rooted in R&B and blues. The French DJ and producer adds his own stamp with spacious building synth lines that crescendo into the chorus. As you might expect, the vivacious anthem is tailor-made for bringing the dance floor to life at the club.

The subdued “Ammunition” leans harder into minimalism. It’s not a ballad but the synths and beats leave much more room listeners to breathe. Wordy verses make way to a harmonized chorus that’s buoyed by a thin beat, Larsson’s lyric “give me” is repeated and extended with all kinds of vocal effects and pitch twists as the song fades out.

The defiant “None of These Guys” is one of the best moments on the album. It’s a full-on pop spectacle that mixes in some dark and moody lt-pop sounds along the way. Larsson’s vocal soars in the chorus and the slick production pulls everything together. The track feels like a stew with all of the ingredients she set out to put into the record.  That life carries over into “You Love Who You Love,” with a fuzzy synth that mimics an electric guitar.

While it’s the closest to a ballad on the first half of the record, “End of Time” pulses with an energetic backbeat. It fuses synths, strings and an array of unique personalities that make it stand out. Complex and layered ballad “Nothing” then delves further into the orchestral production that channels Ellie Goulding.

The pace picks back up on the breezy “Escape,” which shows off Larsson’s ability to jump between the low and high notes in the verses. It’s another track built from old-school R&B and funk, but thrives as a modern pop song. The surprisingly intricate “Soundtrack” quiets things back down and pulls back on the pop bombast of the record.

“I wonder if you think about us/ Do you ever really wish we were more?” Zara Larsson asks.

The mid-tempo title track gives way to the melodic “The Healing,” the most delicate track on the record, rounding things with a message of reconciliation and rejuvenation. Venus offers a fine entry into the pop sphere that should find plenty of eager ears.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.