In the strange and legendary trajectory that Sweden’s favorite sibling duo The Knife has followed over the last 10 years, one short video clip epitomizes their musical career and its relationship to the outside world: sporting a melted-skin mask adorned with dreadlocks and a pre-Gaga red body cape, The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson accepted her 2010 P3 Guild public radio award for “Fever Ray” by letting out a ghastly, wordless croak, bowing and calmly returning to her seat. Three years later, on their 98-minute triple LP “Shaking The Habitual,” The Knife creates that same desperate gasp on “Networking,” a wordless industrial horror that summons modern fear and anxiety.

It’s this uncanny, gut-wrenching feeling that these electro siblings are known for, molting sinister dance music into an ambient slow-motion apocalypse on 2013’s bravest, most innovative album. “Shaking The Habitual” is more than music — it’s a commentary on gender, sexuality and technology that pushes pop’s boundaries and challenges the listener.

Seven years ago, Andersson and her brother Olof Dreijer were already moving and shaking. “Silent Shout,” a dark electronic classic of the 2000s, has become an unexpected cornerstone for rising electro-pop bands around the world. Its androgynous vocals and chiseled house synthesizers have influenced groups like Purity Ring, Crystal Castles and Chvrches and have been widely cited as the origin of niche genres like witch house and drag.

With “Shaking The Habitual,” whose title is a reference to cultural theorist Michel Foucault, there’s no reading between the lines. “Fracking Fluid Injection” is a 10-minute dissonance that evokes a future wasteland of environmental rape, while “A Cherry On Top” uses ancient, Eastern tuning and Dreijer Andersson’s trademark demon vocals to critique the stale hierarchies of global societies.

So this isn’t easy listening — tracks take their time to unravel, derail and decay, much like the way political and cultural systems that the duo is so frustrated with do. “Full Of Fire,” the album’s hair-scorching lead single, takes the irresistible rhythms of today’s popular EDM and subverts them, dragging the listener into a chaotic hell where provocative phrases like “the cock had it coming” and “let’s talk about gender baby/let’s talk about you and me” infiltrate the mind. Whereas old classics like “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” or “Neverland” were faintly anchored to societal struggle and hardship, “Full Of Fire” is an agitated call-to-action for marginalized gender and sexual identities.

The best moments of “Shaking the Habitual” rely on their unexplainable ability to summon visceral mental images and feelings. In a pair of headphones and surrounded by strangers, “Shaking The Habitual” becomes an active experimentation in social anxieties — anyone who doesn’t live in Sweden or isn’t up to date on the country’s political climate can at least feel the intensity that the Dreijer siblings injected into these songs.

The Knife has arrived at a position of power in the music world in which creating a masterpiece like “Shaking The Habitual” is divisively liberating. On one hand, the massive album is a platform for the two to speak out against inequality and suffering through historical references and nods to critical theorists; on the other hand, it’s simply their finest sonic expression yet, in which acoustic and electronic blend together to form ravaging and beautiful landscapes that evoke torrents of emotion. While still too early to tell, the album’s innovations may prove to be hugely influential on experimental music in the future, just as “Silent Shout” was seven years ago. Until the answer is clear, The Knife’s ambitious and progressive outlook won’t rest until it’s heard and felt.