“Being female,” singer and guitarist Marisa Dabice said recently, historically and simultaneously, “is profane.” If Dabice and her mates celebrated this profanity a decade ago when they christened the band Mannequin Pussy, their new album, I got Heaven, is bacch. It's a luscious, messy, self-assured record that seeks out conventions primarily to poke fun at them—style and social conventions, sure, but also the conventional wisdom that the delicate flower of a woman's desire withers if removed from the artificial hothouse. her. Like Chole's Live through it, perhaps its closest predecessor, revels in its most uncomfortable contradictions. He shows his ugliest face, and always comes out on top. It's hard to imagine an indie-rock record that fits the moment better.
There is nothing I got Heaven like the romantic catharsis of 'Drunk II', the instant classic single from the band's 2019 album Patience. “I still love you, silly girl,” Dubic sings to close out the first verse. That line became something of the band's calling card, whether it was intentional or not, the kind of punch line you spend an entire gig waiting to scream back at. It's vulnerable, almost endearing, but its power is based on the protagonist's sense of being accountable to someone other than her wishes, if not her will. The idiot “steps”. I got HeavenMeanwhile, they come from the act of being fucked, happily experienced by people who are willing to risk their independence and self-sufficiency if it means getting theirs. When Dabice sings, “Rewind yourself, get me off, make me feel so elite,” it's basically impossible to imagine her singing “Drunk II” again.
I got Heaven it's at its best when Mannequin Pussy laughs beyond feeling conflicted. On the title track, Dabice is a panting dog on a stranger's knee, equally ready to bite or hunch depending on how things go. By the time the chorus comes, though, it's practically purring. “Oh, I'm an angel,” he sings, “I was sent here to keep you company.” It's not a denial of fantasy—in the very next verse, she wonders aloud what it would be like if “Jesus himself ate my fucking booty,” her voice almost moaning—but an acknowledgment that even a woman plays the dominant role of hornball still has to navigate the men who think the whole thing is their gift.
