InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 9

ALBUM REVIEWS
BLESS THIS MESS
U.S. Girls
Meghan Remy, mastermind behind the
experimental pop project U.S. Girls, has
been on a trajectory of constant evolution
since she began releasing music under her
deceptive moniker in 2008. On Bless This
Mess, the Chicago-born singer-songwriter
dives into an elaborate fantasia
constructed through retro, dance-flavored
pop, with the therapeutic vulnerability of
2020's Heavy Light and the dark emotional
complexity of 2018's In a Poem Unlimited
seeming like blurry memories —
sufficiently worked through and left in a
less-than-pleasant past.
Remy opens Bless This Mess with the
glutinous disco groove of "Only Daedalus,"
where she finds herself trapped in the
labyrinth constructed by the titular
mythological architect who also happens
to be a particularly controlling lover: "You
can't invent my love / And you can't hide
me away." Unimpressed with his creation,
she quips, "You're good with your hands /
But where's your soul?" before segueing
into a cool chorus where she reminds her
partner that "under the street there is a
beach," a line repurposed from a May 68
slogan which, at the time, was regularly
spray-painted throughout France.
Throughout, this new, more outwardly
exuberant emotional register shimmers
with the danceable, luxuriously
throw-back sheen of contemporary pop
music, exemplified by the likes of
Beyoncé and Dua Lipa, whose last albums
appropriated the sounds blaring out of
discothèques in the '70s and '80s. "Tux
(Your Body Fills Me, Boo)," for instance, is
a funky goofball ditty in which Remy
takes on the POV of a frustrated tuxedo,
sick of wasting away in its owner's closet.
The track is the record's indisputable
highlight, Remy firing on all cylinders
while still sneaking in some sly, if not
exactly novel, social commentary: "I was
your passport to so many rooms / Your
mask of pure exclusivity / Now you treat
me like a long gone novelty / A costume, is
that how you see me?"
The only drawback to the track's
explosive flurry of synthesizers,
handclaps, vocoded backing vocals, and
absurdly humorous lyrics is that it
completely overshadows the rest of the
LP. The more subdued "R.I.P Roy G. Biv"
follows "Tux" and tries its hand at a
similar brand of whimsy, relaying a
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