(EMI)
The Chvrches singer’s debut album skips from punk to pop, wilfully unbothered about current notions of cool

After more than a decade at the helm of synth-pop success story Chvrches, Lauren Mayberry has spoken of wanting her solo project to be a retort to being reduced to “a girl in a band”; an opportunity to indulge in the femininity and play that operating in a male-dominated environment never allowed her.

The best bits of this debut solo LP are where this sense of fun and freedom combines with a clap back to those conditions. Previous single Change Shapes is a bubbling pop nugget with a freewheeling payoff that critiques the need to change in order to fit in, while Sorry, Etc runs on brittle punk energy as Mayberry snarls: “I sold my soul to be one of the boys.”