EP Review Upsahl - Sagittarius
3-5 Starshe problem with starting your EP with two utterly sublime pop songs is that you’ve only got yourself to blame when your other three don’t quite reach their heights.
The problem with starting your EP with two utterly sublime pop songs is that you’ve only got yourself to blame when your other three perfectly decent - better than many! - pop songs don’t quite reach their heights. Such is the way with ‘Sagittarius’, the follow-up to Upsahl’s 2021 debut LP ‘Lady Jesus’. Opener ‘Kickflip’ with its effortlessly cool, half-rapped delivery and grinding, party-embracing chorus (“I’m feeling like I’m gonna go hard…”), and previous single ‘Into My Body’ - a self-love anthem that could sonically sit next to Charli XCX’s ‘Good Ones’ and make for a riotous pair - are flawless. ‘Antsy’, even, could join them in the top tier, with a Billie-esque vocal lilt and lyrics that hit sharper than perhaps expected (“I’d run back home except politics broke up my family/ No wonder I’m antsy”). But the hometown ode to ick ‘Skin Crawl’ and closer ‘Toast’ - they’re just, y’know, fine. Which is fine, apart from when we know Upsahl can be way better than that.
