Suki Waterhouse - Memoir Of A Sparklemuffin

While ‘Memoir of a Sparklemuffin’ is an objectively terrible album title, it goes a fair way to describe the jist of this second album from – in the words of one of its tracks – ‘Model, Actress, Whatever’, Suki Waterhouse. Which is to say an often whimsical, occasionally scattershot yet wryly self-aware collection of songs which run a musical gamut from Lana Del Rey’s Old Hollywood-channelling balladry to grunge pop – or more succinctly, much like a late noughties Tumblr given the same name. Take the knowing wink, perhaps of ‘Legendary’, placing itself in the direct lineage of Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Vampire’ and Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ in its opening chords. Or the beautifully cutting line “I was still in primary school when people thought your band was cool” in ‘Faded’, which features a similar cheeky sonic nod to early-‘00s also-ran indie. Suki’s vision feels more coherent within the record’s heavier tracks – the petulant, nonsensical (yet wholly fun) chorus of ‘Big Love’, for example, or ‘Supersad’, which lands somewhere between early Wolf Alice and a scuzzier Blondshell. With eighteen tracks there’s definitely a case for the album falling a little too long – but as anyone who has ever used a particular microblogging platform should know, it’s easy to get carried away.