"Here, her cut-up vocals ground both the album's tighter tracks and looser moments-the same timbre that seduces on one song is, elsewhere, exasperated or desperate. On "Jaime," Straus' voice cracks with a childlike whine; on "Say What You Will," a woozy interlude with a scene-stealing feature from Idles ' Joe Talbot, it strains to the surface of a harp-laden grotto of sound, struggling for air before dissipating into digital glitch."
"Straus may have left the major label system, but she kept industry heavy-hitters in her corner. Working with producers Jake Portrait (the Unknown Mortal Orchestra bassist partly responsible for Lil Yachty's psychedelic pivot), and Aire Atlantica ( Doechii, SZA), Straus crafts a soundscape with less bubblegum and more angst, for better (the macabre, Halloween-y outro of "RIP KP") and for worse (the indulgently cinematic drop of the title track sounds a bit like the closing credits of a planetarium show)."
"Girl Violence emerges after not one, but two big breakups-the conclusion of Straus' professional relationship with Ronson, and the end of her four-year romantic relationship with film and creative director Quinn Whitney Wilson. Abandon all hope ye who seek love songs or excessive gentleness here; on Girl Violence, Straus is playing the spurned rockstar, not the simp. What's also missing-as in most art inspired by personal relationships-is the other side of the story."
Straus deploys cut-up, emotionally variable vocals that unify both tight songs and looser interludes, shifting between seductive, exasperated, and desperate tones. The record is the first without Mark Ronson and leaves Ronson's Columbia imprint, yet features producers Jake Portrait and Aire Atlantica, producing a sound with less bubblegum and more angst. The album contains macabre touches and occasionally indulgent cinematic moments alongside airtight rock-leaning tracks. Girl Violence follows both a professional split and the end of a four-year romantic relationship, yielding a spurned-rockstar posture rather than gentle love songs, and omitting the other side of those personal narratives.
Read at Pitchfork
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