Album Review: Squeeze by SASAMI

While touring, Ashworth began writing her own tracks, eventually leading to her intensely personal and honest debut album SASAMI, which is informed by reverberating dreamy guitars and lightweight percussion. However, Ashworth's second effort, Squeeze, combines the delicate elements of SASAMI with a much heavier and abrasive sound - with traces of Kittie, Chelsea Wolfe, and Poppy to be found in the ferocious guitars that open the album on "Skin A Rat". The track marks a significant departure from the inoffensive indie guitars of SASAMI, instead drawing similarities to Rina Sawayama's metal influenced "STFU!" Both songs channel tongue-in-cheek yet assertive feminine rage, with Ashworth singing "In a skin a rat mood / Cut 'em, crush 'em / Big, big boot.

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Sasami Ashworth's (performing as SASAMI) sophomore album, Squeeze, is a marked departure from the dream woven delivery of her 2019 self-titled debut. Squeeze is a study in alternating currents (the type that can kill you) that no doubt gets your attention, but can also make for a jarring experience. The opening pummel of "Skin a Rat" recalls the first track uncharacteristic ugliness of "Pig" from Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider, but unlike that album, Squeeze doesn't settle into a bucolic groove thereafter.

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