Gloom Girl MFG - Polycrisis EP (2024) Hi-Res

We first encountered Nashville’s Gloom Girl MFG last fall when the indie-punk outfit caught our ear with their blend of over-the-top humor and serious subject matter together invoking their recently reformed hometown heroes, Be Your Own Pet. Following the release of the debut EP Factory which they were celebrating at the time, the quartet is already back with another release titled Polycrisis which expands upon their polished-yet-raucous, upbeat-yet-often-unhinged sound, incorporating the influences of new wave and other more guitar-centric countercultural genre influences such as post-punk and riot grrrl.

In fact gender is frequently the focal point of these six new tracks, as vocalist Paige MacKinnon confronts it-girlism on opener “Bougie Girl” and dramatizes the local turf wars taking place in Nashville on the scathing “Batshitlorette.” Less explicitly, MacKinnon channels some of the moment’s most groundbreaking voices across the new EP, expertly replicating the powerful vocals of Sheer Mag’s Tina Halladay on “Damaged” before switching gears and exploring range on the ensuing “Batshitlorette,” which sees the vocalist nailing talk-rock grooves before the song’s explosive back half.