US girls - In a Poem Unlimited

The Guardian 80

(4AD)

‘It so happens that, right now, a lot of the things I’ve been talking about for the last 10 years of doing this project are all coming to a head in the mainstream,” Meghan Remy – AKA US Girls – said recently. The #MeToo campaign and other movements have placed issues such as domestic violence and male abuse of power at the heart of the political agenda and into everyday conversation in ways Remy couldn’t have imagined when she was making albums for a succession of US indie labels. So the second work for 4AD by the Toronto-based, Illinois-born artist arrives with perfect timing, and tackles difficult issues with her most accessible music so far.

The mix of classic 60s girl group and disco-era Blondie is so gloriously celebratory that it’s not always obvious that she is singing about something as harrowing as domestic violence. That subject rears its ugly head most vividly in the innocuously titled track Incidental Boogie, which unflinchingly explores abuse and denial (“No marks and no evidence” and “I feel brutalised, but closer to him”) over fizzing sci-fi funk. Remy isn’t the first artist to musically sweeten a bitter lyrical pill, but her collaboration with Toronto musical collective the Cosmic Range (who include her husband, Maximilian Turnbull) makes an effective vehicle for sharp ruminations on topics such as factory work hell (Rage of Plastics), violent revenge on an abuser (Velvet 4 Sale) and her disappointment with American politics (Mad As Hell).