Chloe Moriondo - oyster

Chloe Moriondo has never been one to stay in one place for too long. Across previous releases she’s embraced everything from twee ukelele-driven pop (‘Rabbit Hearted’) to angsty pop-punk (‘Blood Bunny’) to vengeful, maximalist pop (‘SUCKERPUNCH’). With ‘oyster’, she takes another daring leap – this time into the depths of an oceanic, glitchy club world, resulting in a breakup album that is as ambitious as it is beautifully crafted.

‘oyster’ finds Chloe navigating heartbreak by submerging herself in aquatic metaphors, exploring the shifting tides of grief and self-discovery. But even in its rawest moments, it never feels heavy-handed, balancing the chilling vulnerability of its lyrics with pounding beats. Tracks like ‘catch’, ‘raw’, and ‘abyss’ take glitchy cues from hyperpop, turning grief into something danceable. On the slower tracks, Chloe channels Charli xcx at her most introspective. Take ‘shoreline’, for example, where she confesses, “And I’m no quitter / So I’ll love you ‘til I die” in auto-tuned vocals over pulsating synths.

For all its brutal honesty, there’s still plenty of space for playfulness. The spine-tingling ‘hate it’, for example, embraces unhinged, theatrical fun as she fantasises about wearing a stranger’s face and robbing a bank.

After swimming through the depths of her psyche and heartbreak, there are moments of hope that begin to shine through. The instrumentals in ‘weak’ sparkle and shimmer with newfound optimism, and ‘sinking’, finds her singing “Moving forward isn’t as bad as it seems” over skittish club beats, signalling the first steps towards the surface. It’s a fitting end to a record that captures the tumult and stillness of heartbreak in equal measure and proves, once again, that Chloe Moriondo is an artist who thrives in transformation.