Album review: Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven

If a record’s opening song contains a line as bold and irreverent as 'What if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?' it’s probably going to be good. That much is certainly true for Mannequin Pussy’s fourth outing, which is a fortunate thing as they may well be in need of a win. The Philadelphia punks recently ended up being the discourse of the day on social media for using an AI artist to make a music video – how much that controversy will follow them remains to be seen, but it’d be a tremendous shame for it to overshadow what’s arguably their finest record.

More than anything, I Got Heaven is preoccupied with the messiness of feeling everything to its most potent degree, and it expels those bottomless reserves of feeling in rather contrasting ways. There’s a reason they’ve have been booked for Outbreak this summer – the initially restrained Loud Bark builds to a squalling crescendo that lives up to the song’s name, with Missy Dabice howling like she’s released herself from chains. OK OK OK OK is a whiplash-inducing white knuckle ride, while Aching is the sort of scabrous 90-second thrill that the Manchester hardcore fest's infamous mosh waiver is made for.

That said, the beauty about I Got Heaven is that it contains multitudes. Its celestial dream pop influences are the stuff you want to romanticise your life to – the twinkling I Don’t Know You is a gorgeous ode to a crush from afar with the devastatingly real hook of 'I know a lot of things / But I don’t know you.' Sometimes, meanwhile, brings the opposite poles of their sound together with dreamy verses and a more jagged chorus that evokes the feeling of a heart cracking open – 'Come and leave your lonesome ways behind / Just sometimes!'

This is punk at its most multifaceted and emotional, overflowing with desire and angst.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Scowl, Momma, Basement

I Got Heaven is out now via Epitaph