Four years have passed since the Swedish indie pop singer, Lykke Li, released her debut album. By the sounds of her new record “Wounded Rhymes,” she has done a lot of growing and breaking up since. In February, Li commented on the new direction of her second album to Rolling Stone saying “It’s about the loss of innocence and illusions…I wanted to keep it raw and primitive.”

While she does not always manage to keep it primitive on tracks like the swathed-in-reverb Spector-esque “Sadness Is A Blessing,” “Wounded Rhymes” is light years away from the twee phrasings and sparse organic instrumentation of “Youth Novels” released in 2008. Perhaps her audience should have seen it coming. On “Little Bit” from “Youth Novels” she sang, “And for you I keep my legs apart / And forget about my tainted heart.” Evidently, Li was never as innocent as her cutesy yet controlled vocals made her sound.

To clear up all misconceptions, Li shattered her good-girl image by dropping “Get Some,” the first single off “Rhymes,” in October last year. Amid the propulsive jungle drums and spaghetti western guitar on “Get Some,” she instructs her lover not to “make demands / I don’t take none” one moment, then reassures the next, “I’m your prostitute, you gon’ get some.”

Nothing on “Wounded Rhymes” quite matches “Get Some” in sheer bluntness, sassiness and, most importantly, funkiness, but there is still plenty left to love. With songs like “Sadness Is A Blessing” and “Unrequited Love,” an old-school burner complete with doo-wop backing vocals, Lykke Li could easily woo fans of current British soul sensation Adele into her honey-loving arms.

As her song titles suggest, “Wounded Rhymes” showcases an older if not wiser Lykke Li. On the album’s most successfully executed track, “Love Out Of Lust,” Li confesses she would “rather die in your arms than die lonesome” but also admits the risks involved in making herself vulnerable again and again when she sings “The higher that I climb / The deeper I fall down.” Just as Fiona Apple has carved a career out of confessional indie pop, Lykke Li manages on this album to harness the hurt of her heartbreaks and create something uplifting. “Wounded Rhymes” is a cathartic rather than depressive affair. After a few listens, you will probably be smitten with the same indomitable love-lusting spirit that Li has infused her album with.

“Wounded Rhymes” can be purchased at Best Buy or on Itunes. The album can be streamed at stereogum.com: http://stereogum.com/644192/stream-lykke-li-wounded-rhymes/mp3s/