Album Review: Blood On The Silver Screen by SASAMI

On the Silver Screen is SASAMI's pop statement, one that's rewarding for listeners precisely because it was a rewarding experience for the artist herself. "Pop music is like fuel," says SASAMI (full name Sasami Ashworth), a classically trained musician whose previous efforts included explorations into the dark side of indie rock of her debut and touring with a metal band a few years ago. These 13 songs deal with the quintessential themes explored in pop--self-destruction, emotional insecurity, and hopeless romanticism, all under the great big banner of love.

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Where Sasami's albums once began with frustrated vocals atop a brash metal backdrop that gets off on rodent torture, they now arrive hosting a succint, full-blown pop record perfectly acceptable for daytime radio, nurtured by a newfound superstar alter-ego. Predictably, she's shied away from diving too deep into the pop realm up until this point. Immediately upon entry, however, Blood On the Silver Screen makes an effort to blend the barriers separating rock and pop: Sasami wakes us up to her serious ability to excel across both fields.

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It's difficult to admit that we're in a period of nostalgia for the 2010s, but SASAMI's ambitious new pop album takes you back to the era of shiny leggings and huge owl pendants. It's no coincidence that the sounds across Blood On the Silver Screen evoke aesthetic memories of garish fashions and enormous Facebook photo albums. The links between visual and musical pop culture both transport us back and bring the era forward.

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For anyone familiar with SASAMI's previous record, 2022's 'Squeeze', the singer's about-turn on its follow-up may catch you a little off-guard. While the thrashing nu-metal and sludgy industrial sonics that punctuated her sophomore release appear to be a thing of the past, on 'Blood On The Silver Screen' the musical polymath finds herself entering amore vibrant, buoyant pop chapter. An artist that's always seemed focussed on shapeshifting, unsurprisingly, she wears this new vision well, channelling the gutsy, confidence-boosting spirit of the genre across the album's thirteen tracks.

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More often than not, albums of empowerment are hard terrains to navigate. It's like trawling through a rainforest teeming with deadly snakes, a swamp marred with invisible quagmires, or a perilous mountain range stacked high with frozen bodies. The line between idealisation and delusion can become increasingly blurred, and there's always the risk that self-assured assertions creep into unsolicited preaching.

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