REVIEW: MUNA - MUNA

4/5

What I Want, Want.

Punisher, Phoebe Bridgers appeared on MUNA'S smash single, the smooth as 'Silk Chiffon', last year. And the rest is now L.A. electropop history. Waving its pom poms for the 'But I'm A Cheerleader' movie, singing, "And life's so fun, life's so fun/Got my mini skirt and my rollerblades on/Bag on my side 'cause I'm out 'til dawn/Keeping it light like silk chiffon/Life's so fun, life's so fun/Don't need to worry about no one/She said that I got her if I want/She's so soft like silk chiffon." Now MUNA are signed to Bridgers' Saddest Factory record labels, and it's all happy days as they hit the jukebox with their self-titled third album, following RCA's 'About U' (2017) and 'Saves The World' (2019). Your ode to a queer crush enters the mainstream like King Princess and Maggie Rogers coming out on the same day as Beyoncé in a matter of July weeks. For yet another hot summer and best year for women in music like Haim. Once, twice, three times the part. We refuse to be told it's a man's world now. Because it would be nothing without one-half of the population. Even if the United States needs to be told to go f### itself like Phoebe did at Glastonbury after the anything but Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade like this was 'The Handmaid's Tale'. All in the same week that here in Japan, the government failed yet again to recognise same-sex marriage. Thank God for acts like these who sing for love and women in any way the choose to be. Silk times tougher than leather. And if you thought the cheer they led for 'Chiffon' was a liberation anthem, then wait until you really hear 'What I Want'. 

"I want the full effects/I want to hit it hard/I want to dance in the middle of a gay bar/Ooh, ooh-ooh/That's what I want, there's nothing wrong, with what I want/Yeah, yeah

I want the fireworks/I want the chemistry/I want that girl right over there to wanna date me/Ooh, ooh-ooh/That's what I want, there's nothing wrong, with what I want." Yeah, yeah. This latest single is it like Rogers rocking a wig straight outta Scarlet Johansson's 'Lost In Translation' karaoke. The indie icons of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson are here to stay with album number three. And it's big. No longer notorious. But all of us. Dark power in all its synth for the arts. From UCLA to here today. The Dead Oceans alive with that Pacific sound of new wave disco. Getting as real as it gets on 'Anything But Me'. Singing, "You're gonna say that I'm on a high horse/I think that my horse is regular-sized/Did you ever think, maybe, you're on a pony/Going in circles on a carousel ride?/You're gonna say I asked for the moon/I think that it's you with your head in the sky/All that I wanted was somebody honest/Living for more than their next good time." Taking a bumbling world today of dating, that doesn't really apply itself to task like Tinder, with this serious swipe. But "blowin' on a dandelion" like the wind that "could change at any time", 'Kind Of A Girl' takes it further along the sandy road. Cowboy hats and moustaches on in union harmonising, "I could get up tomorrow/ Talk to myself real gentle/Work in the garden/Go out and meet somebody/Who actually likes me for me/And this time I'll lеt them/Yeah, I like tеlling stories/But I don't have to write them in ink/I could still change the end/At least/I'm the kind of girl/I'm the kind of girl who thinks I can/The kind of girl who thinks I can." Leaving a toxic relationship and way of thinking with this last line of affirmation. 

'Home By Now', you really will be on the last single that takes you there. Now how about this verse "Heard that you were selling your piano and your car/It feels so weird to not reach out and ask you how you are/I wonder if you're moving or if money's just that tight/These are the kinds of questions to which I've resigned my rights", to add to the songbook chapter? We hate to say it, because it hurts the hardest. But break-ups really do make up the best lines like this. You'll feel it all the way down your drive as MUNA bring it right to your door. Going for a jog, 'Runners High' will give you exactly that, strapped to your arm, like your phone to your favourite playlist that that will now be added too. Meanwhile, 'Handle Me' is too hot to with lyrics like, "I am not a brand new bicycle/I am rough around the edge/I am not a flower petal." You have 'No Idea' like, "I think you think I'm like a virgin/Not in a Biblical sense/You think I'm nervous and uncertain/Because I'm waiting." Put your hands together like Madonna. Because like her our prayers have been answered with the new pop queens in vogue. It's not rocked this hard since En Vogue told you to 'Free Your Mind'. The glam rock of 'Solid' spins right round like a record that glitters in all its disco ball joy. Whilst 'Loose Garment' will pull at the thread of your sweater as you walk away, 'til your wheezing. Yet it's the powerful percussion of the albums curtain 'Shooting Star' that really synth soars as it charts a destructive relationship as it heads for the billboards itself. A love so bright it could blind you like,"And tonight when I closed the door, I wanted to turn back/But when I see a shooting star, I stay out of its path/And that's what you are, you're so bright/You burn my eyes and you move too fast/So I say “Goodnight, make it home" like I’m making a wish/On you, from afar/You, my shooting star." One thing you can be sure won't crash unlike Crypto is MUNA. Affording the industry so much more after assembly line years of the saddest excuse of music. With these kind of girls, you can have what you want again. And it's so silky. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Silk Chiffon (Feat. Phoebe Bridgers)', 'Kind Of Girl', 'What I Want'.