Sasami Ashworth, a.k.a. SASAMI, refuses to be pigeonholed. She veers away from the metal-inspired sound of her 2022 album Squeeze or the shoegaze subtleties of her self-titled debut on her new release Blood On the Silver Screen, opting instead for straightforward pop inspired by the music of the late ‘00s and 2010s—in particular Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry and Sia. We’ve heard some hints of Ashworth’s capacity for pop songwriting before—like the summery release of the chorus on “Callous” or the expansiveness of Squeeze closer “Not a Love Song”—but this record sees her completely committing to the bit. She recruited a pair of pop experts to produce the record—Jennifer Decilveo, who’s worked with everyone from Miley Cyrus to Hozier, and former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij—and the result is her most accessible work yet, with shimmering moments of catharsis sprinkled throughout familiar-sounding (and sometimes forgettable) melodies.
Opener “Slugger” is perhaps the album’s strongest track, throbbing with the indie-pop immediacy of a MUNA song and begging for you to dance along. The line “I’m such a cancer / I wish I had the answer, baby” is the type of slightly silly pop lyric that, back in the AIM days, would have made a great away message. The menacing, darkly sexy “Nothing But A Sad Face On” is another high point, imagining Eve “banished from the Garden of Eden for fucking a snake. She’s leaning on the Gates of Eden smoking a cigarette reflecting, well, it’s worth being banished to get laid,” Ashworth explains in a press release. It sounds like a forgotten Lana Del Rey single that Ashworth has unearthed, blown the dust off of and put her own stamp on.
Blood On the Silver Screen, besides being an exercise in pop songwriting, fixates on the genre’s favorite subjects: love and lust. The album is rife with lyrics that are destined to be scream-sung by the heartbroken and/or horny. Ashworth finds herself in a will-they-or-won’t-they tug of war on the yearning country track “Just Be Friends.” The bridge barrels forward, spurred on by robust drums and the crash of cymbals, until she despondently repeats the phrase “Maybe we should just be friends,” her voice growing more and more distant—a clever production choice that could be interpreted as the narrator leaving her paramour, or the fact that this sentiment is far from what her heart actually wants. Hyper drum machine and swaggering guitar and make “I’ll Be Gone”—all about an ex that’s hard to quit—one of the album’s most exciting, danceable moments. The stadium pop rock of “For The Weekend” feels appropriately dramatic for a song about the murkiness of situationships. That track also contains one of my favorites of Ashworth’s one-liners: “This isn’t a fishing trip / I’m not trying to catch feelings.” “Possessed” is a sweaty, snappy romp that explores society’s conflation of sex and violence (“Moving my hips, my hips like a sharp blade / Losing the sense of feeling in my face / Something’s possessing me tonight”). Unfortunately, with the highs also come the lows; “Love Makes You Do Crazy Things” has one of the clunkiest choruses lyrics-wise on the album (“Love makes you do crazy things that you never should do”). Love is pop music’s most enduring subject for good reason, given the many forms it can take, and SASAMI does her best to delve into them all in about 40 minutes.
Ashworth is clearly a skilled songwriter; she’s classically trained, and the careful rises and falls of each track show that she’s done her pop homework. However, the songs on Blood On the Silver Screen lack a certain stickiness—I found myself bopping along while I listened, but struggling to remember choruses soon after the final notes ended. Ashworth’s sonic curiosity and her determination to create as varied a catalogue as possible are commendable. Ultimately, though, listening to Blood On the Silver Screen left me longing for the strangeness and singularity of SASAMI’s first two albums.
Watch SASAMI’s 2018 Paste session below.
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Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s associate music editor.
