Shygirl – ‘Swallow!’ review: a dreamy, guitar-heavy return from the pop experimentalist

Following the slippery, futuristic club sounds of her 2022 debut album ‘Nymph’, Shygirl’s second album ‘Swallow!’ has been touted as a step back in time to guitar-heavy, turn-of-the-millennium indie rock and pop. It’s essentially the pitch Dua Lipa failed to deliver on with ‘Radical Optimism’ and Charli XCX nailed on ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ – but from Shygirl it feels especially intriguing. In the decade since her grittily seductive debut single ‘Want More’, the London artist has made a name for herself in experimental music while flirting with commercial pop, but hasn’t given much of a previous indication she is also really into The Cardigans. ‘Swallow!’ succeeds in bringing moody live guitars into her shapeshifting sound without it feeling bolted on. READ MORE: Meet Solana, the technicolour ‘YoruPop’ star trailblazing her own sound A maximalist record co-produced with Karma Kid, ‘Swallow!’ densely combines sounds which can be linked to the 33-year-old’s formative years in the late-1990s and early-2000s. ‘Alyse’ samples Colleen’s 2006 track ‘Cello Song’ in a big beat banger which recalls, down to the vocal “whoops”, The Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’. There’s a hint of that big beat...