Cherry Glazerr // Apocalipstick Review

Cherry Glazerr’s sophomore album comes years after the band’s creation. Hailing from L.A. the threesome have undeniable swagger which permeates every tune and led to their signing to Secretly Canadian (a label which also boasts Anohni and Suuns).

The band has been together in its many iterations for five years, frontwoman Clementine Creevy being the only permanent fixture. She cuts a fine figure in the burgeoning riot grrrl revival; a millennial response to Kathleen Hanna.

Opener “Told You I’d Be With The Guys”, the track that propelled them through the blogosphere and onto DJs best of lists around the world, is a tale of female solidarity, tracing the singer’s affinity with women and sees her pondering her lack of female friends: “Where are my ladies?/ Nobody has my back”.

“Instagratification” starts out like a ballsier, confrontational My Bloody Valentine – shoegaze elements give way to howling antagonism, devolving into an organ solo breakdown. The lead singer’s disembodied breathy vocals waft over the cutting guitars.

“Humble Pro” is rollicking old fashioned fun and displays the best in the singer’s knack with catchy melodies, the drums propelling it forward. If the approach is fairly formulaic it only highlights her understanding of pop craftsmanship. The guitar here is razor sharp, The Strokes circa 2006 style, which should come as no surprise, as the record was co-produced by Joe Chiccarelli, a Strokes henchman who honed the jagged guitars and fierce drums into something that sounds less like the teenage snarl w on their debut album “Haxel Princess” and more like rebels with a cause.

In “Lucid Dreams” she spits:“fuck your flimsy messages”in a paralysing nightmare about texting. She takes on modern technology with equal parts disdain and care, not disregarding its virtues but holding a mirror up to the way it entrances young people today.

Final track 'Apocalipstick' more than lives up to its name: heavy, doom-laden riffs and menacing reverb, the track is purely instrumental, the singer saying everything she needed to say – the outcome is irreversible. It sounds closer to heavy metal or 80s hair rock than the other songs.

The punk posturing throughout the record may be due to Creevy’s side job as a model and Yves Saint Laurent muse but the aesthetic only solidifies the band’s intent: style over substance this is not. The singer is not riding on the coat tails of fourth wave feminism (cough Taylor Swift cough), but turning a critical eye on women too, shunning the empty terms we bandy around today like ’empowerment’ or ‘self-love’.

The band are baring their teeth in this second venture, hitting the sweet spot between fuzzy grunge and synth pop. The end is nigh, but not for Cherry Glazerr.