I Got Heaven

I Got Heaven has a little bit for everyone. If you enjoy a sugar pop song, they have it. If you like songs that move fast and vicious, they have that too. Mannequin Pussy can move seamlessly between extremes, but they don’t usually mix the two entirely. Songs either lie in the power pop or punk hardcore categories. Their ability to switch between the two is impressive.

While Dabice and Mannequin Pussy might be worried that their destructive Dark Phoenix energy is too much to take, I Got Heaven is an album of apocalyptic rock & roll bliss.

The band’s most concise sound yet whilst never taking itself too seriously, as Mannequin Pussy continue to dominate a world of their own creation.

I Got Heaven moves with an intuitive grace that makes it feel stadium-sized without losing its nuance or its grounding in the scene that birthed it. It’s easy to love, and it knows it.

Whether or not Dabice believes things inside her have changed, it’s undoubted that I Got Heaven is taking Mannequin Pussy to new levels, and things on her exterior are only going to get bigger and brighter.

For every part of I Got Heaven that feels new, what remains is just as potent. The record finds the band radiating both love and fury, at their most powerful and at their most vulnerable.

In shifting the lyrical focus away from one songwriter’s experience—exemplified by the previous hyper-emotional adrenaline rushes of “Drunk II” and “In Love Again”—some of the lovelorn charisma that made Mannequin Pussy so special has been lost. Nonetheless, the record’s disparate strands mostly hold together, a formidable document of their fire and fury—and one that’s needed more than ever.

Mannequin Pussy’s map of utopia may span uneven terrain, but the band dominates every inch of it, forging cohesive paths between harsh and heavenly melodies. The feat renews one of punk’s lasting tenets for a new era of activism: to protect what’s precious—freedom, community or otherwise—you usually have to raise a little hell.

Their most accomplished statement thus far. Expanding far beyond their hardcore roots, Mannequin Pussy delivers shimmering alternative rock with more precision and less abandon.

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

This is thrillingly visceral music that could bring Mannequin Pussy ever closer to crossover success.

Mass appeal might be the only thing missing, perhaps not possible for a band that has to asterisk their name sometimes. It’s not stopped them from perfecting their place in vibrant scenes that have scaled to wider appreciation, and with I Got Heaven now in the back pocket, few groups deserve a share of the limelight more.

It is the sound of a group that have fully clicked and have fine-tuned their signature sound into another high point. The rage is more deeply felt, the self-examination is more bracing, the wins more hard-fought, and the songs are up to carrying the thematic weight through to cathartic highs.

Mannequin Pussy’s lyrical prowess is on full display with I Got Heaven.