| "Next year I'll be 21/ So look out, world, 'cause I wanna have fun," sang Pearl on BYOP's "Super Soaked". Now 22, Pearl's name is front and center on Break It Up, her solo bow recorded with BYOP drummer John Eatherly. The zombies and pizza parties of yore are replaced with predicted "dark days," though this Brooklyn by-way-of Nashville badass is still thrashing against maturity as best as she can. As far as ass-kicking goes, there's plenty of it here. Nearly every song is marked with a rough-edged riff from another era, whether it be surf, garage, or girl group. And Pearl's guttural wail is intact. But there are no straight-up, minute-long goofs, and instead of raging on about pitch-perfect nonsense and suburban malaise, Pearl often turns inward. The self-reflection can be reassuring, as on the fizzy, Dave Sitek-assisted Gemini ode "Ecstatic Appeal", or deeply troubling, as on the laborious downer "Retrograde", where voices in the back of Pearl's mind tell her to "go on, cut a little bit deeper, see how far we can go." Faced with a child star's dilemma of symbolizing infinite irresponsibility, Pearl dips into adulthood admirably on Break It Up. a SUPERB album i believe. |
