U.S. GIRLS

Bless This Mess (4AD)

Fifteen years into her career, Meg Remy’s U.S. Girls are described as an “evolving musical project”, the latest evolution being this album: Bless This Mess. Vintage in feel but modern in ideas and subject matter, here Remy’s voice takes on a whispery quality a la Kylie Minogue – a comparison that feels more apt considering the Aussie icon’s last album was a disco throwback. But where Minogue takes a more mainstream pop approach to a 70s/80s dancefloor sounds, U.S. Girls are more theatrically experimental.

The most interesting thing about Bless This Mess is its specificity. The album’s title track, a swaggering slow jam, sounds like closing time in a late 80s cabaret club, gentle enough to lull the drunks into a stupor as the lights come back on. Tux (Your Body Fills Me Boo) starts like a spoken word Diana Ross number and evolves into a shimmering floorfiller. The opening electric drumbeat of lead single So Typically Now has the cheesy, attention-grabbing energy of the Baywatch theme, ending up in an unexpectedly soulful place. This rhythm is followed through on the anthemic Futures Bet, which combines a wailing guitar solo with a proto-hip-hop beat.

I was less enamoured by a couple of the slower numbers, their repetitive sing-song quality more grating than gelling, but closing song Pump is an exception. A softly swaying ballad that fades into poetic affirmations, it’s named after (and apparently samples) Remy’s breast pump: Bless This Mess was conceived while she was pregnant with twin boys. In this context, it sounds like an artist going through a period of transformative joy, and infectious to hear.

words HANNAH COLLINS