Album Review // Chew Lips - Unicorn

Chew Lips debut album is a record of erotically charged pop that grabs you by the hips and pulsates against you until every part of your body longs to dance, with ‘Slick’ a clear standout track exuding as much effortless sexuality as a lover tracing their fingers on the inside of your arm. The album dispels the lazy musical comparisons to Karen O as whilst lead singer, Tigs, is brimming with exuberance when she’s hurling herself around stage, her musical style a lot more tame. Partly in that there’s an innocent inexperience to Tigs that Karen O’s inclination for deep-throating unsuspecting microphones wholeheartedly stamps out. It’s refreshing to see Chew Lips aren’t trying to be ‘the next [insert full-of-its-own-importance band name here]’, but by ‘Seven’ the album seems to peak, evoking the feeling of a break-dancer who’s used already thrown out their best head spinning moves and is only half way through a dance-off, especially by ‘Piano Song’ a ballad that feels like it’s trespassing in the form of a monologue from the seventies. A debut seemingly brimming with potential but falling at the last hurdle like an over-confident horse in the last ten seconds of a race.