There’s something mildly frustrating about this. Indie queen Rachel Chinouriri first emerged in 2018 as a SoundCloud starlet with So My Darling, a tender hymn to an everlasting friendship. The Londoner went viral in 2022 with maddeningly catchy All I Ever Asked, finding cheerleaders such as Sophie Turner, Adele and Lewis Capaldi. Is it strange to have those old songs reappear here? A little. It suggests this is the sort of debut you release when you fear you’ll only get one shot. That fear is misplaced.
Chinouriri is an accomplished songwriter. Ideas spill out of every crammed corner of this collection. Her often hushed husky voice, developed when trying to practise without annoying her Zimbabwean parents, isn’t for everyone. Yet there’s range to her delivery, whether dropping punchy barbs during Dumb Bitch Juice or self-excoriating on My Blood and I Hate Myself. Situationships are dissected on It Is What It Is; Never Need Me offers irresistible new wave thrills, and the remarkable title track recounts her cousin’s pregnancy and suicide over a tune that takes a hook to your brain and refuses to retract. Her next album will be even better.
