Review: Illuminati Hotties’s ‘Let Me Do One More’ Is a Dynamic Lesson in Contrast

In addition to being an indie rocker on the rise in her own right, Illuminati Hotties lead singer Sarah Tudzin is an accomplished producer, mixer, and engineer who’s worked with the likes of Weyes Blood, Lady Gaga, and the cast of Hamilton. Her technical expertise gives her a firm grasp on the emotional and sonic arcs of Illuminati Hotties’s music, which is full of swift and dramatic shifts in tone, from acerbic and brash to soft and despondent.

The band’s self-described “tenderpunk” style is defined by the ebb and flow of dualities, and on Let Me Do One More, these contrasts are enthralling. Like their 2018 debut, Kiss Yr Frenemies, the album is dynamic and clever, with the constantly shifting array of production details underscoring Tudzin’s lyrics. “Knead,” for instance, matches the textures of lyrics about food crumbs and hands on thighs with gritty guitars and caustic, pinched vocals.

Compared to early Illuminati Hotties bangers such as “Pressed 2 Death,” though, the songs on Let Me Do One More are even more ambitious and prone to sudden and surprising changes of pace. The blistering “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA” is especially bold, its skittering percussion and discordant electric guitars complementing Tudzin’s wild vocal modulations, which channel riot-grrrl energy in one moment and Kate Bush in the next. And all the while, Tudzin’s wordplay (“An ex-terrestrial, I used to be grounded”) and sense of humor (“The DNC is playing dirty/Text me, touch me, call me ‘daddy’”) attest to her wit and charisma.

Let Me Do One More’s emotional apex is the raw and revelatory ballad “The Sway.” Even as Tudzin sings about losing power to a partner who uses her (“Made sense to get your confidence polished with me”), her restraint behind the board for much of the song makes the slow build to its impassioned bridge all the more impactful. Between its slow-burn structure and gestural lyrics (“You’re leaning in/I’m leaning away”), the song avoids melodrama for a moment of tearful defiance that lives up to Illuminati Hotties’s tenderpunk ethos.

Let Me Do One More’s somber slowcore-influenced love songs are even more effective when they directly abut the rowdier garage-rock tracks, and the album’s sonic palette is as wide as its emotional fluctuations. As a whole, Let Me Do One More is more punk than its predecessor, and like Australian punk-rockers Amyl and the Sniffers, Tudzin weaves the personal with the political and—in a way that’s as clever as it is uncomfortable—economics with love.

Narratively, much of this album revolves around a relationship in limbo, with Tudzin singing to a lover who’s slipping out of reach. Big Thief’s Buck Meek gives this character a voice on the alt-country-meets-power-pop “u v v p” when he says, “I’ve been known to have too much tumbleweed in my blood to ever settle down.” On “Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism,” Tudzin’s absurd and up-to-date lyrics about lovers exchanging death threats give way to a marketing ploy as a metaphor for her misguided affection: “The corner store is selling spit/Bottled up for profit/I can’t believe I’m buying it/Isn’t that genius?”

This inner turmoil crystallizes on Let Me Do One More’s forlorn closing track, “Growth,” where, subdued almost to a whisper, Tudzin sings, “You’re so used to the ignorance of the apathetic.” Her partner isn’t just an individual falling out of love, but a symbol of a generalized disconnect, the romantic communication breakdown standing in for political polarization and inaction. “I guess being an adult is just being alone,” Tudzin concludes from behind a thin gauze of distortion. She ends the album by saying, fittingly, “Let me do one more,” presumably a request for another take recorded candidly in the booth. In the context of this heartrending breakup song, though, the album’s title reads as a prayer for another chance, a hope that sorrow and indifference can be overcome by love and the creation of art.