In a post-Olivia Rodrigo pop landscape where Paramore are a new generation’s most influential band, 23-year-old Natasha Woods, AKA Dylan, makes a lot of sense. Like Rodrigo, the Suffolk-born singer-songwriter turns failed relationships into messy anthems, often dismissing no-mark exes, or clamouring for emotional parity, over stadium-sized, pop-punk tornados. She also explores that tricky grey area just as things start to fall apart, giving songs such as the thundering Lovestruck an extra dose of disillusionment.
A fan of AC/DC, Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses when she was growing up, Dylan bolts big, chunky guitar riffs and even bigger choruses on to songs that occasionally scuff up this debut mixtape’s pervading pop polish. Treat You Bad, for example, is slathered in distortion, opener Girl of Your Dreams is alcohol-dazed, while throughout Dylan’s voice shifts between sarcastic howl and sorrowful yelp. On the softer, pop-rock highlight Blue, which recalls Red-era Taylor Swift, she channels grief, regret and desperation as a relationship’s solid ground falls away: “Would you wanna do it over again?” she asks.
You can’t move in 2022 for pogoing pop-punk upstarts, but here Dylan stakes her claim as the most convincing of the bunch.
