I’m 23 now, which is a weird age. I’ve completely lost myself and have no clue what I’m really supposed to do anymore, I think some would call it a kind of burnout. The last year has really put me through it and yet I just can’t shake this feeling that there is something more than this, just something around the bend waiting for me and I’m not sure if it’s for the better or for the worse. I’ve never felt so called out by an album until my first listen through of Kamikaze Girl.
Straight out of the gate you’re hit with Hellbound which finds itself somewhere between floaty, melancholic shoegaze with its echoing reverberation, and slow-building grunge. Constantly building upon itself this track is preparing you for the drop and just when you think you’ve reached the peak and anticipation is built it repeats itself over and over and over again, almost as if convincing you that there are big things coming.
The tonal shift from track one to track two is deliberate. Shedding its soft skin we move on to the raunchier and more forward Sidekick. Nostalgia hits me square in the face, suddenly I’m 14 again discovering Misery Business by Paramore at 3am on a school night, desperately googling Youtube to MP3 so that I can have the song for myself and brag to my friends about this ‘totally underground’ band that I’ve discovered.
Kamikaze Girl is emo for the next generation. It has one foot in the past and one looking forward to the future. It has the guitars, lyrics and sarcasm that scream early 2010s while having a modern edge talking failing relationships, nepotism babies and the corporate hellscapes.
Frogtown is a personal favourite. Now, I’ve never lived in LA or London and I just had to google to find out why it’s called that (swamps?! A swarm of toads?!), but I live in Manchester and I think that’s close enough. I’ve lived through the free parking become paid parking become luxury apartments for soulless influencers, who just spring up out of nowhere with daddy’s money and I’ve also envied that lifestyle wanting it for myself, wishing that my parents could find me a cushy job and finance three trips to Italy every year. This song is a protest and this album is testament to pushing through and proving that yes you can do it, so just do it.
A running theme throughout this album is duality and call me crazy but I can’t help but think of the 2002 film, Kamikaze Girls. It’s a Japanese film that revolves around a friendship between a lolita and a biker which blurs the lines of what femininity can manifest as. Similarly, this album is able to balance itself, melding nostalgia and transformation, paying homage and moving forward, reflecting and changing. Learning from our mistakes, letting go and carving a path for ourselves.
Shunkan: Kamikaze Girl – Out 6 May 2025 (Rite Field Records)
Meg is a proud Mancunian and Music Journalist. She started out by writing press releases for bands in her free time, but now runs her own website Dyrti which she plans to expand in the near future. She loves Lester Bangs and Tony Wilson and has interviewed bands such as Cabbage, Oceans On Mars and Adult Cinema. You will more often than not find her somewhere in the Northern Quarter.
