Twerp Verse

[Sadie Dupuis] leads from the front with an outrageous level of assuredness and a delightful penchant for a hook.

It’s their strongest album to date, and while Speedy Ortiz are probably never going to make that giant leap into the mainstream--they’ll always be a bit too abrasive and lo-fi for mass acceptance--Twerp Verse is the sound of a band standing on the verge of great things.

Dupuis’ reference may run more to punk and indie, rather than disco/R&B, but the effect is eerily similar: gender studies inquiries encased in the kind of music that once looked uncritically at female disempowerment. Yet while it’s serious stuff, it’s also fun, with big bashing choruses and somersaulting strings of words that surprise and entertain.

It's easily the band's most direct album, but rather than dumbing things down, they've removed anything that might get in the way of their messages. The more defiant they are, the more accessible they get, and they kick off the album with some of their hookiest songs.

The result is a sharpening of Speedy Ortiz’s axe to grind. Succinct, wry, and in tune with its context, there’s plenty to unpick, here.

Their latest effort is a much-welcomed return to form.

An album that’s packed with dry wit and choppy, off-kilter energy, but one that’s lyrically far better suited to a darker, post-#MeToo world.

Beneath their silly-string riffs are nuanced screamers. [Jun 2018, p.114]

An album that strikes a balance between thorny and accessible in a way that’s smart and tuneful.

With few absolute standouts, it’s a consistent, engaging listen full of little surprises and ongoing discoveries.

This is the most listener-friendly and accessible that Speedy Ortiz have ever been. But the band hasn’t left behind their heavy grunge sound, despite what many long-time fans will think when they listen to Twerp Verse. They’ve just given their sound a clever makeover, and taken the next step in their evolution as a band by doing so.

While Twerp Verse offers no tune as stick-like-glue as Foil Deer’s “The Graduates” or Major Arcana’s “Plough” it offers compensatory pleasures.

The headiness doesn’t always work to Dupuis’s advantage; for every song on Twerp Verse that gets its point across with fresh, memorable language, there’s one where cutting through the thickets of wordplay feels more exhausting than enjoyable. Still, when she gets the balance just right, as she does on the creepy sexual-harassment story “Villain” and the romantic-dysfunction anthem “Backslidin’,” she’s one of indie rock’s finest lyricists.

This album feels like the training wheels have come off, and Speedy Ortiz can really show what they’re capable of. For one, this is Speedy Ortiz’s poppiest album yet, with plenty of synths, hooks, and an overall brighter sheen. However, it’s not like Lazar infected their grunginess with an overwhelming flavour of the top 40.

Twerp Verse is a solid entry that should please fans of Speedy Ortiz and might also gain them some new ones with its hints of pop.

It's clear right from the start that good choices have been made. Every track here packs a punch. ... It's only really on the (even) more experimental "I'm Blessed" and "Moving In" that things don't really work.

The vignettes pack enough detail and emotion to work as well in short fiction form. [Jun 2018, p.97]