Puberty 2 Review

The album opens by describing happiness as a guest who leaves the room a mess, which tells you the terms immediately. Musically it is an odd and effective mix: a stiff programmed beat under a guitar mixed so hot it distorts the whole track, and then a saxophone arriving where you least expect one. Your Best American Girl is the centrepiece, a quiet verse about not fitting into someone's family that explodes into the loudest chorus she has recorded, and the specificity of the situation is what makes it universal.

Happy and Dan the Dancer are jagged and short. A Loving Feeling is ninety seconds and complete. Fireworks and Crack Baby are slower and just as sharp. The lo fi elements occasionally work against her, a couple of vocals are buried where they should be forward, and the record is over in thirty two minutes. It leaves nothing out that matters. A genuine leap.