On their second release, Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy manage to make the tightest mess I’ve listened to today, this week, this month, maybe even this year. With the eleven songs clocking in at about seventeen minutes, there is no extra anything here. A big shift from 2014’s GP, Romantic builds on the pop influence of the earlier stuff by integrating some more direct East Coast hardcore sound, creating something Pixies-like, both heavy and tender. Like Dilly Dally’s Katie Monks, Marisa Dabice’s vocals weave the ethereal and the raw with lyrics that are a vision of twenty-first century romance that’s honest about the fact that dealing with feelings in a world so deeply fucked up is a trying enough task without taking it out on yourself. –Theresa W. (Tiny Engines, tinyengines.com)