Let's Eat Grandma

I'm All Ears

BY Matthew BlenkarnPublished Jun 26, 2018

7
When it comes to transmuting specific moods into pop music, Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton are wise beyond their years. Under the moniker Let's Eat Grandma, the pair of teenaged multi-instrumentalists from the UK write music that seems to dwell in moments of unfiltered emotion. Listeners fell for the pair after their 2016 debut, I, Gemini, and songs like "Deep Six Textbook" and "Eat Shiitake Mushrooms."
 
Their new album, I'm All Ears, is just as immediately arresting. With production from SOPHIE and the Horrors' Faris Badwan, Hollingworth and Walton dissemble gender with disjunctive synth-pop on lead single "Hot Pink." Glitzy synthesizers belie the pain of estranged relationships on "It's Not Just Me," while "Ava" is a sombre, economical take on the narrative approach the duo used on Gemini track "Rapunzel."
 
All that emotion makes for potent listening, but I'm All Ears is most affecting when it keeps things simple. Both "Donnie Darko" and "Cool & Collected" ride out extended passages past the nine-minute mark, and their livelier moments don't quite justify the wait. That's less of an issue on "Falling Into Me," which pays off with a slow-burn chorus at just the right moment.
 
Satisfying as both a sophomore effort and streamlined pop album, I'm All Ears establishes Let's Eat Grandma as a band that need to be heard.
(Transgressive)

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