Gretel introduces long-awaited debut album ‘Squish’

Gretel (fka Gretel Hänlyn) has confirmed that she’ll be dropping her long-time-coming debut album ‘Squish’ on 10th April via Breadcrumb Records / AWAL. 

Over the past few years, she’s cemented herself as one of alt-rock’s most intriguing new voices via a pair of early EPs (2022’s ‘Slugeye’ and 2023’s ‘Head Of The Love Club’), and ‘Squish’ was born from returning to her instincts to make a grungy, immediate, guitar-led record.

“It’s been a long time in the making, even longer in the living and patiently waiting to release,” the DIY Class of 2024 alum has reflected. “These songs reflect the last five years being at times like a big fat baby and other times like a zen old woman who knows very well when and whether to give a fuck.” 

Recorded over just five days at RAK Studios, ‘Squish’ will feature recent singles ‘Maybelline’ and ‘Darkness, be my friend’, as well as its just-released title track - a rollicking, high-octane number that Gretel has describes as being about “all the things that press down on you over time to make this uncomfortable, deformed desire inside.” 

Continuing, she explains: “I feel like I always have that desire in me - it’s in this curious place between what the world pushes onto you and what it squeezes out of you. But sometimes I have dreams so oversized that when I look down at myself, I’m just doing this awkward infant waddle towards them.”

Revisit our Great 2025 Debate - featuring Gretel - and check out the video for ‘Squish’ below.