By Grace Koennecke, Managing Editor

It’s rare to find music sometimes that is able to fully encapsulate the female experience, especially in a way that connects to the collective rage and frustration many women feel currently in this political climate. Luckily, Mannequin Pussy, a female-fronted alt-punk band from Philadelphia, is the perfect remedy to cure one’s feelings of anger and bitterness, even for someone like me who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards punk music.

For this week, my love letter is dedicated to the group’s most recent release, 2024’s I Got Heaven, an album centered around freedom and rebellion that has a larger than life sound at times. With much of the songs sung from the perspective of lead singer Marisa Debice, it’s also a relatable account of womanhood and what it means for a woman to not fit into the societal, gender-based norms that the world wants her to conform to.

Read more: A Love Letter to Sometimes, Forever by Soccer Mommy

The album opens abruptly with the title track, which is all about feeling comfortable in your body and your desires. Dabice’s growls, reminiscent of the dog motif she weaves into multiple songs throughout the album, is vengeful and confident, especially powerful in lines like, “And if I wanted it, you really think I’d wait for the permission? / For protection and assurances that all would be delivered?” The song also acts as a rejection of submission, with many of its lines advocating for freedom of autonomy: “Oh / I got heaven / Inside of me / And oh (Heaven) / I’m an angel / I was sent here (Heaven) / To keep you company.”

The animalistic desires hinted at in the title track bleed into “Loud Bark,” which was my favorite song of 2024 and is one of the high points of this album. Focused on the pleasure and pain that come with sex and desire, Dabice’s vocals have an orgasmic quality to them that grow more and more angry as they reach the chorus, evident as she shouts: “I got a loud bark, deep bite / A loud bark, deep bite.” Feeling insecure in her physicality and sexuality, the song overall sees the narrator feel frustrated and confused as to why nobody finds her attractive, with lyrics like, “Not a single motherf*cker who has tried to lock me up” and “I want to be a danger, I want to be adored,” symbolizing this sentiment.

However, it’s also a song about Dabice, and other women, finding their own sexual gratification, whether through being more dominant or not. It’s a war cry to me of sorts, as any female-identifying listener understands the way women are still perceived by men in a sexist, objective way. The ending of the song is the discovery of finding pleasure and power, found in other lines, such as, “I’m such a romantic / I’m such a f*cking tease / I keep you in my sugar and you eat it on your knees.”

“Nothing Like” and “Sometimes” are two tracks that don’t necessarily resort to the frantic drumming, guitar strumming and heavy vocal delivery found throughout much of Mannequin Pussy’s discography, and that’s what makes both of them so interesting to listen to. The first track is all about obsession, particularly when one falls deeply in love with someone else. Lines like, “Nothing like the shape of you / Entering a room, I spin round you / Nothing like the words you say / As they leave your mouth and float my way,” prove that the narrator is totally infatuated, not able to focus on her surroundings once her lover is with her.

It’s an overly sentimental track on the record, reminiscent of late 1990s alt-rock songs you’d maybe hear in 10 Things I Hate About You, making it have a nostalgic, lovesick feel to it. Meanwhile, “Sometimes” has elements of other songs from the same time period, like Sixpence None The Richer’s “Kiss Me,” and is more about the toxicity that comes from staying too long in a relationship.

Dabice’s screams of pain and longing refer back to the same sentiment of “Loud Bark,” but this track grapples with loss more than the beginning track. She sings, “Why’d you go and take your life and try to fit it into mine? / I know that it’s not right for us to stay / But sometimes / (Come and leave your lonesome ways behind) Oh, sometimes,” and the overall tone is cautiously aware of how dangerous it is to return back to someone repeatedly for comfort and pleasure.

“I Don’t Know You” is another one of my favorite songs from this record, which focuses on new love and wanting to explore the unknown about someone else. More stripped-down compared to the rest of the album and only amping up the bass towards the end of the song, it has a haunting quality to it that lingers with you even once the track ends. It also simply just has amazing writing to back up the stellar production, such as with lines like, “I know a lot of things / I know a lot of things / But I don’t know you,” which repeat over and over to emphasize the feeling of crushing on someone new.

The latter half of I Got Heaven reverts back to the grunge-punk sound heard heavily on Mannequin Pussy’s previous record, 2019’s Patience. The rambunctious, ear-piercing wails and chaotic drums that are classic to the genre arrive abruptly on “OK? OK? OK? OK!,” with member Colins “Bear” Regisford joining Dabice on vocals to sing again about wanting dominance over others. Dabice and Regisford’s chemistry as bandmates is forceful and threatening, as the two warn about the future and the uneasiness associated with it in a new political climate.

One of the ending tracks is “Softly,” a song about manipulation in a vulnerable relationship. Dabice is hesitant to give herself over to another person, but also begs this person to show her love and affection: “Tell me softly that you / You wanna know me / Daylight, it brings / Revelations about your hands, your lips, your heart.” It also is about the contrast between day and night in a relationship, seeing a romantic partner differently as time passes: “What if one day I don’t want this anymore? / What if one day I don’t want you anymore? / What if one day I don’t love you anymore?”

Ending on “Split Me Open,” Mannequin Pussy uses this album to explain the contradictions that come with love and sex, and in this song, time. The overall ending note of the song is not being sure of one’s feelings for someone else after keeping their distance, with Dabice wanting to be worshipped but afraid of the cost of letting her desire be shown. She sings, “I’m worried I want you / With the power / Of a thousand suns burning as one / With someone,” and the fear around letting someone in seems to be a motif of this album that many listeners can relate to, whether it be on a physical or emotional level.

I Got Heaven by Mannequin Pussy is an album I love because it is relevant to the female experience, displaying the frustrations with politics, society and love that plague daily life. Full of rage, pleasure and rebellion, it’s a beautiful symbol of emotion and the longing for the unknown that makes it one of the more adventurous and introspective punk albums of the last few years.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5ROzqM7rbMYoKbQIw4i7fp?si=b08UFn1xR1O4fNAB5Lh2tA