Consumer Guide: September, 2025
Soul jingles meet ad jingles, "Dumb Luck” rhymes with “IDGAF,” three L.A. sisters savor sex and tunes, and the Mahotella Queens shine on their own.
Amaarae: Blackstar (Golden Angel/Interscope) “Ketamine, coke, molly” at their cutest, weirdest, and sexiest, but only if that’s actually your idea of a good time, which I hope it isn’t (“Stuck Up,” “B2B”) *
Body Type: Expired Candy (Poison City, ‘23) The only discernible reason that this sexed-up Australian band—three frontwomen and a female drummer now together for nearly a decade—is often compared to the estimable though somewhat less predictably preoccupied Courtney Barnett is that, well, Barnett is a woman and indeed a lesbian. What she isn’t is anywhere near as raucous; the aesthetic on the band’s catchiest album reminds me a lot more of Nirvana except that it’s (guess what) sexed-up. Which in itself renders it quite the engaging take on pleasure and hooks and rock and roll. A MINUS