While Gen X might tut-tut that it’s a flash-in-the-pan (and Boomers don’t know that it exists), sad girl pop has been around long enough to diversify its sound, from the extremely pop to sad girl rock to the sad art girls like ill peach. On debut THIS IS NOT AN EXIT, the duo of Jess Corazza and Pat Morrissey do more with the sound.
Primarily, they add with the strong, if not surprising, synthesizers, from the Metric-esque opener “BLOOM” to the stronger pop emotional finish of “SIGH” (yes, the album title & song titles are in all caps, while the band name is all lower-case). It’s done best in the second & second-to-last songs, the catchier electro-rock sad girl “BLAH BLAH BLAH” and the touching acoustic heartbreak of “HEAVYWEIGHT”. Indeed, the latter is so strong that perhaps one wishes there was more of that style, rather than two sub-minute instrumentals and an intermission.
Like artists, after they’ve blossomed, sonic styles face the choice of going mainstream or going arty. Thankfully, they can pick both, and ill peach takes the art route on THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.
