Over the past 14 months, three very different LGBTQ acts have each released a brilliantly subversive song titled “Boyfriend.” Last April, Tegan and Sara made a synth-pop plea for a straight girl to stop playing around and commit. In September, Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace raged at a flaky partner who treated her like “some dumb fucking boyfriend.” Then in February came Marika Hackman’s contribution, a sly Britpop power-play about stealing a man’s girlfriend from under his nose because the poor dolt believes “a woman really needs a man to make her scream.” It’s one of the year’s sharpest singles: a funny, sexy rebuke to ignorant blokes, and an excellently produced throwback. Its boldness erases any lingering sense of Hackman as some fey folkie, a fairly unjust reputation that stuck to the 25-year-old Londoner’s debut, 2015’s unsettling We Slept at Last.
London four-piece the Big Moon back Hackman on her follow-up I’m Not Your Man, and producer Charlie Andrew has balanced the sound of five women playing in a room with details that enhance the record’s sense of menace. Whether boisterous or seething, the guitar tones owe a debt to ’80s U2 and grunge, but the scale is more claustrophobic than stadium. Quiet feedback-hums will suddenly squawk and lurch like a constricting noose, and the group regularly breaks into marauding vocal chants that are impeccably arranged but full of feral energy. Without any explicit tricks, “Round We Go,” a song about “rolling ’round my skull like a flesh-colored marble,” seems to close in on itself, suffocating slowly. There are a few overdone bits—the orchestral outro of “Blahblahblah” is a bit on the nose, and the cavernous “So Long” is more obvious than the rest of the record—but otherwise it’s melodically strong and full of surprises, which is more than you can say for most young British indie-rock albums of the last few years.
Most of those records lack killer hooks; Hackman has many. There’s “Boyfriend,” where she roars, “It’s fine ‘cause I am just a girl/It doesn’t count,” simultaneously mocking the guy and airing her frustrations with perceptions of lesbian relationships as somehow “lesser.” “Time’s Been Reckless” feels like one of Blur’s early singles then breaks into a raucous chorus that pits the Big Moon’s chants against Hackman’s emotional frostiness. It’s similar in theme to “My Lover Cindy,” where idle twang undercuts Hackman’s image of a mutually beneficial hook-up and her tendency to ghost lovers. The music dips out for the chorus, leaving her voice center stage: “‘Cause I’m a greedy pig/I’m gonna get my fill/I’m gonna keep my eyes on the prize and I’ll suck you dry, I will,” she sings, sounding innocent and depraved, pirouetting on each word while licking her lips.
Against more trad backing, Hackman can sound like any English rose, as on the rolling, slightly Medieval “Apple Tree.” But in darker surroundings, she sings at a dispassionate remove that gives her excellent, carnal lyrics an extra kick. She paints the emptiness of a past relationship and the fullness of her current one with sensuality and mordant humor. The breakup in “Cigarette” becomes even more brutal thanks to Hackman’s economical writing, quickly distilling a fight in a car park after a dismal night out. “When did it get so forced? Drunk by the second course,” she rues over fluttery fingerpicking. “I tried to hold my tongue/But you, you yanked it from my grip/Bathed it in petroleum/Lit a cigarette and gave it a kiss.” “I’d Rather Be With Them” could come from the end of the same night, drunk and aching. “I’m so fucking heartless/I can’t even cry,” Hackman sings, sounding full of self-loathing.
There’s one love song here, “Violet,” a luxurious, sinister come-on akin to the space westerns of Torres’ Sprinter. “I’d like to roll around your tongue/Caught like a bicycle spoke,” Hackman sings. “You eat, I’ll grow and grow/Swelling up until you choke.” She savors each word, her seductive delivery driving home the violence. Hackman’s tactile lyricism reinforces a portrait of a numb woman desperate for sensation by any means possible. It’s not hedonistic thrill-seeking, but rings true in a world where numbness can be a survival technique—and pleasure and sensation are equally at a premium. As a writer, Hackman may owe a bit to PJ Harvey, but I’m Not Your Man is the proper arrival of a bold young British force.
