Mannequin Pussy - Romantic

Pitchfork 76

Brevity is among Mannequin Pussy’s strengths, but a controlled volatility is the Philadelphia quartet’s calling card. The mood of any given song can zap with a disconcerting swiftness from the playful to the chaotic. This dynamic persists on record and on stage. Opening for Colleen Green at Baltimore’s Metro Gallery last August, the band kicked up a series of shoegaze-y whorls, detonating their abrupt thrash-punk before the audience could let its guard down.

Beginning in New York City, Mannequin Pussy was formed by childhood friends Marisa Dabice and Thanasi Paul, and their early demos set an ineffable foundation: indecipherable, sub-minute hardcore bursts, propelled by Paul’s sharp drumming and Dabice’s lashed punk chords. By 2014 debut LP Gypsy Pervert, the melodies buried in the group’s sound had clawed their way to the surface. Paul swapped out his drum kit for a guitar, and the band’s lineup reshuffled, while track lengths expanded modestly. Significantly, Dabice found her footing as a singer and songwriter, as evidenced by smart standouts like “Clue Juice” and “My Baby (Axe Nice),” where second-wave American punk and 1990s cuddlecore made uneasy common cause.

For all of Pervert’s advances, it never quite gelled as an album. Romantic does. Its volcanic peaks and gauzy valleys hew to a sequential logic; neither a build nor a decline, but rather, the ferocious push-pull of a mosh pit. Dabice’s vocals have taken on a bitter insistency that suits themes best described as interpersonally political. Romantic also benefits from a consistent, road-tested lineup that includes bassist Colins Regisford and drummer Kaleen Reading. This tautness allows the band to double down on what it does best and roll a few dice.

All lurch and glossolalia, “Pledge” suggests a lost My Bloody Valentine single harboring the paranoid stoicism of death metal. “Meatslave One” is a 56-second lamentation of smart-phone narcissism dressed in grunge flannel. The turbulent “Emotional High” and “Kiss” treat friend-dynamics from near and distant removes, respectively, with no punches pulled. On “Beside Yourself,” the don’t-look-back anthem that closes the album, the four mass their voices in angelic chorus to leaven what is a jagged, collective scorching of earth.

A wild energy animates the 20-minute Romantic, as it spills out in every direction. This is most evident on “Ten” and “Denial,” when Dabice’s personality is especially harried and panicky, her lyrics Jenga-stacked and tripping over themselves, the songs supercharged. “Ten” rails against that kind of depression that can confine you to your bedroom, buckling so hard that the song risks shaking itself into pieces. “Denial,” a jangly, introspective self-inventory, explodes in wracked gasps. “Pick yourself up, baby, everything’s gonna be fine, but if not, so what?” she counsels, pleading. “You’ll get it right the next time/You should stop getting down on yourself, everyday.” These are words to live by.