Sky Ferreira reaches for her mic stand as though she intends to kill it, holds it in a white-knuckle grip and ascends into the monster chorus of 24 Hours. Amid the song’s grinding bass and crashing synths this brief movement is magnetic in a way that it shouldn’t be – a shot of pop-star presence given extra stakes by the false starts and tortuous diversions that have led her to this point.
It has been almost 11 years since Night Time, My Time introduced the then 21-year-old Ferreira’s blend of pillowy electro-pop and dead-eyed cool. Label spats and interminable delays have made the wait for its follow-up Masochism – originally planned for release at least two years ago – into a yawning chasm. (In November, it was reported that Ferreira and her label Capitol appeared to have parted ways.) True to form, while the name of that near-mythical album is emblazoned on T-shirts at the merch table, there’s no new material debuted here. Instead, there is a punishingly loud reintroduction to songs that feel like they have been kept in suspended animation.
