King Princess - Girl Violence 

King Princess – aka Mikaela Straus - opens this third record ‘Girl Violence’ with a ghostly title track, laying bare her belief that love is warfare. “I guess it’s true love,” she surmises, “‘cause it truly fucks with me”. But this moody approach belies the record’s actual manifesto: that the pain makes it worthwhile. Addicted to and enamoured by heartbreak, Mikaela performs with all the boozy alt-rock of a lovelorn Britpop act: “Jamie / A-ha / Can’t you leave me alone?” she pleads on ‘Jamie’, drunk and lovesick. As with all artsy romantics, she finds identity in the agony; on ‘Girls’ she confesses herself a martyr for women and the earth-shattering romance that accompanies them. “Girls! / Bring me to my knees,” she sings, her staple New York drawl floating over wintry soft-rock, punctuated by a crescendo of cries, “Ah! / Ah! / Ah! / Ah! / Ah! / Ah! / Girls!”

At its most romantic, ‘Slow Down And Shut Up’ sees Mikaela paint a version of love disrupted by stardom, but she’s enigmatic in her seduction, alleviating anxiety with brash arrogance. “It’s you that I want / Fuck your friends / They’re no fun / And it’s you that I want.” Largely, the record sways in this smoky alt-rock dive bar performance, affected and broken, coursing with suffering, post-break-up self-pity and attempts at indifference as remedy to the pain. Standout ‘Serena’, meanwhile, is far more sober in its approach, swelling with staple King Princess pop-rock grandiosity, all while affirming the sincerity of her romance, despite its rough-around-the-edges tendency. “If I could make you feel this / Then maybe you’d believe me / Not everybody loves like this.”

At its core, ‘Girl Violence’ is a portrayal of melodramatic love and its overwhelming possession that’s as earnest, self-indulgent and womanising as expected from the King Princess demeanour. “You’ll hear me scratching at your post,” she promises on ‘Covers’, “and you’ll wonder if it’s me that’s haunting you.”