U.S. Girls
Heavy Light
Release Date: Mar 6, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: 4AD
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Album Review: Heavy Light by U.S. Girls
Exceptionally Good, Based on 7 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
In Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools, the author concedes that "the past is never where you think you left it" — both a comment on our failure to see the insidious patterns of history, and a recognition of yesterday's slippery nature, of its knack for hiding and revealing itself in unexpected ways. Heavy Light, the remarkable new record from Meg Remy's U. S.
Based on rating 9/10
Heavy Lights title was inspired by Franz Kafka, the master of blending sociopolitical pressures with the frustration of surviving in a post-industrial world, and his popular quote: "A belief is like a guillotine. Just as heavy, just as light." While Remy's lyrical concerns and thematic conceits may hang on that tension between the personal and the political issues of modern living, the music itself doesn't give you any chance to wallow. Heavy Light is a marked departure from the swampy robo-voodoo-disco of her previous record, the rather excellent In a Poem Unlimited, and a turn towards a far more luxurious, exuberant, breathless blend of soul and funk, with many sincere gospel flourishes and a handful of gorgeous ballads.
Based on rating 8.5/10
In her long career as a sound collagist and pop music obsessive, Meg Remy has thrived in moments of feminized vitriol. The women of Remy's songs are so often threatening to asphyxiate themselves, on the verge of suicide, and mad as hell. For much of her career, U.S. Girls has been an exploration of female violence and rage.
Based on rating 8.5/10
For the better part of a decade, Meg Remy's U.S. Girls has been expanding and shifting. Her original self-produced tape experiments under the name bear little resemblance to the disco pop found in 2018's critically acclaimed In a Poem Unlimited. Her latest album, Heavy Light, continues to broaden her musical boundaries, but with an introspective eye towards her past 10 years under the U.S.
Based on rating 8/10
U.S. Girls isn't as much a band as an ever-mutating organism. Begun by experimental songwriter Meg Remy in the late 2000s as a noisy solo act backed by reel-to-reel tapes, the project grew into a monolith of larger-than-life pop. 2018's In a Poem Unlimited was one of Remy's finest moments, with her polymathic songwriting bending disco-funk, glam rock, and ambient composition into new forms.
Based on rating 7/10
In less than forty minutes, Meg Remy's U.S. Girls project reinterprets a vast slice of the American musical landscape all interlaid with Remy's social concerns. Whereas 2018's fractured disco masterpiece, In A Poem Unlimited, stuck primarily to the knitting of its genre, Heavy Light covers the waterfront. Opening track 4 American Dollars provides a link back to Poem, but it's more of a jumping-off point than a continuation.
Opinion: Excellent
T he many albums of US Girls - Meghan Remy - could be summed up as a series of sound art installations evolving from experimentation into bold tunefulness. Album six, Half Free (2015), sketched female character studies like a pop Cindy Sherman. Album seven, 2018's celebrated In a Poem Unlimited, was angrier and more explicitly political, even if Remy herself sounded like Debbie Harry doing disco.
'Heavy Light'
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