Review: Heavy Light - U.S. Girls
By Kenny Cox
2020 has lasted but only three months, but the world already feels like it’s on fire. With pandemic sweeping across the globe, wealth inequality only growing, and anxiety becoming standard operating procedure for most people, the chaos of modern life can feel utterly paralyzing and unintelligible. But for singer, songwriter, and producer Meg Remy, it's the foundation for exuberant, flourishing pop tracks that try to make sense of the pandemonium that has become the new normal. Under the name U.S. Girls, Remy’s newest record Heavy Light is a collection of fearless, incisive pop tracks that aim to take on the turbulent present, while simultaneously reconciling with the past.
Following in the footsteps of the most recent U.S Girls release, In a Poem Unlimited, Remy draws upon the richly produced, groovy sounds of ‘70s disco, funk, and pop, making the dance floor her site of political protest. The album’s opener, “4 American Dollars” best exemplifies Remy’s approach to political pop, calling bullshit on the “bootstrap” ideology that has been a mainstay of American economics for centuries over an instrumental straight out of Studio 54. “You were living in a cashless dream/Acting like it aint obscene/Can’t fool me with that old routine” sings Remy, sounding like a revolutionary overthrowing the rich under the shimmer of a twirling disco ball.
Elsewhere on Heavy Light, Remy takes on everything from gender inequality, to climate change and mass media’s ability to manipulate the public. “State House (It’s a Man’s World)” is a chilling, almost operatic track calling out the expectations women bear the burden of. “It’s a man’s world, we just breed here/We don’t have no say, we only bend” sings a chorus of voices before the track shifts into a screeching, burst of harsh noise and feedback. The climate crisis is later personified on “The Quiver to the Bomb,” where she casts Mother Nature as taking back what was violently seized from her by humanity: “She could have never ever known/That we’d over-reaped what she’d sown/Now she’s taking it back/She’s kicking us off her land.” The track points to Remy’s singular ability to tap into the ruin of modernity, all the while producing a glistening pop song.
However, Remy isn’t only interested in merging past and present in her production, but in the album’s structure itself. Spoken word tracks interspersed throughout the record feature a collage of voices reflecting on teenage ambitions, past harms, childhood bedrooms, amongst other memories of past selves. These voices reflect Remy’s own ruminations on her past, with tracks like “Woodstock ‘99” charting her past relationships growing apart and distancing across the spans of time. “Now you live somewhere no one wants to get old/on the seventh floor you look below to that park,” sings Remy, tinged with the regret of letting her loved ones get lost to the sands of time.
Heavy Light is a pop record for the end of times — a record where, in the face of so much atrocity, the nostalgia of the past feels like the only way to mitigate the pain of the present. With her impeccable production and tight hooks, Remy has pulled off what feels impossible — songs of crisis glowing under the neon lights of the club. No one knows when the night will end, but U.S Girls is sure to keep the disco running until the lights come up.
