Sasami Ashworth’s gentle indie rock debut, Sasami (2019), felt reasonably familiar to fans of her previous band, Cherry Glazerr; the bracingly industrial metal of 2022’s Squeeze less so. Now the California musician has moved into sprightly, shiny pop for her third solo album, picking over matters of the heart. And the groin – apparently, Lana Del Rey-alike Nothing But a Sad Face On is about Eve’s mixed emotions after being “banished from the Garden of Eden for fucking a snake”. Don’t fret if you can’t recall that precise bible story; Ashworth has plenty more relatable tales of compromised, messy modern-day dating.
Pop may not always come naturally to her. Most of Ashworth’s choruses linger on the ear no longer than a lost ladybird, and the deft Taylor Swift via Grimes-sounding production can’t conceal a dearth of durable material. But Slugger is surefooted, summery pop with a shock opening, when she calls herself “a cancer”. Honeycrash and the marvellous The Seed introduce intriguingly metallic textures. “I’ll come if you lick my scars,” she promises/warns on Love Makes You Do Crazy Things, and that sort of memorable weirdness adds a welcome tension to the radio-friendly aesthetic.
