Album Review Speedy Ortiz - Twerp Verse

Speedy Ortiz have always been a band with an established knack for turning the personal political, presenting cutting social dissections through the lens of kaleidoscopic, surreal worlds. New album ‘Twerp Verse’ is every bit as fantastical, too; this time through its deft manipulation of language.

Approaching her lyricism like a guest (or twerp) verse across the entire record, Sadie Dupuis piles in the witty linguistic tricks like her time could be up at any second; bizarre flips of familiar idioms and peculiar peeks of complex imagery with a poetic bent shaping the entire creation. The result of a re-think (Speedy binned an album’s worth of “lovey-dovey” songwriting) a stand-out comes from ‘Villain’, written early on in proceedings. “I wanna know what kind of porn you like,” coos the mocking hook, belittling a strange man asking unsolicited, invasive questions as you attempt to get on with your day.

Though the majority of ‘Twerp Verse’ was written after Sad13’s solo debut ‘Slugger’, it’s easy to spot the creative similarities between the two, and the result is a sharpening of Speedy Ortiz’s axe to grind. Succinct, wry, and in tune with its context, there’s plenty to unpick, here.