Phil Mongredien 

US Girls: Bless This Mess review – bodies, birth and dating pains

Meg Remy’s life-changing experiences colour a scattershot album that works best the closer it sticks to straightforward pop
  
  

Meg Remy U.S. Girls.
The more experimental material can be heavy going: Meg Remy, AKA US Girls. Photograph: Emma McIntyre

The making of Meg Remy’s eighth album as US Girls was set against the backdrop of pregnancy and the birth of twin boys, so it’s perhaps inevitable that Bless This Mess is informed by such life-changing experiences. Indeed, Pump even begins with a sample of her breast pump, before Remy makes reference to caesareans and breastfeeding, and asks herself: “So what are we talking about? Bodies, birth, death, machines.” Elsewhere, Screen Face dissects relationships that exist purely on phones, and how poorly they compare with real-life touch and scents (“No way this is a date/ My screen is not your face”). The opulent disco stylings of Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo), meanwhile, soundtrack the despairing musings of a rarely worn tuxedo, “lonely, suffocating in this plastic bag”.

Stylistically, the St Vincent-adjacent Bless This Mess is a little scattershot, with Remy most sure-footed on the straightforward pop of St. James Way. Her more experimental material can be heavier going: the sparkling funk of Pump’s first half gives way to an interminable coda that’s far more annoying than clever.

Watch the video for the single Bless This Mess by US Girls.
 

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