what's on

Mannequin Pussy’s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard.
Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins “Bear” Regisford (bass,
vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths), and Marisa Dabice
(guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. “There's just so much
constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like
a radical act ,” says Dabice. “The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.”
Their latest I Got Heaven, which is out March 1 via Epitaph Records, is the band’s most fully
realized LP yet. Over 10 ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting pop,
the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an
unfeeling and unkind world. It’s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond
to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive.
Following the 2019 release of their critically acclaimed third album Patience, Mannequin Pussy
returned in 2021 for their EP Perfect. They toured that release relentlessly and added guitarist
Maxine Steen to the band’s official lineup. Where the band members’ personal lives were in
transition with breakups, changing living situations, and periods of self-reevaluation, their time
together on the road was a grounding and clarifying force. “There was so much going on in our
lives that it was the perfect opportunity to recalibrate who we were as people and musicians,”
says Regisford. The band changed their entire formula, choosing to write together in Los
Angeles with producer John Congleton over slowly crafting tracks at home. “When I've written
songs, it's usually a very solitary process,” says Dabice. “So this was shedding a lot of those
hermit-like qualities to do something intensively collaborative. Your best work comes when you
allow other people into it.”
By December 2022, the band had 17 new songs written with Congleton in Los Angeles.
“Everyone felt empowered to speak up about their own ideas to make this thing the best it could
possibly be,” says Regisford. New member Maxine Steen, who has made music with Dabice for
years including their side project Rosie Thorne, was especially essential to the writing sessions.
The album opener “I Got Heaven” initially started as one of Steen’s demos. “When she showed
it to me I knew it was going to be fun because the verses have this hard-hitting and aggressive
approach but the chorus allows for a really soaring melody,” says Dabice. The result is electric.
Over walloping guitar riffs, Dabice defiantly yells, “And what if I’m an angel? Oh what if I’m a
bore? And what if I was confident would you just hate me more?
The song with its righteous lyrical blending of the sacred and profane is an unapologetic look at
Christian hypocrisy. “I don't think there's ever been anything in need of a spiritual revolution
more than modern-day Christianity,” says Dabice. “It sickens me the way that people use it as a
way to do the worst things imaginable, say the worst things imaginable, and pass the worst
imaginable legislation that directly harms people.” Instead of judgment, greed, and avarice, the
songs on I Got Heaven ask what it really means to genuinely care about the people around you
and help your communities in ways you can. “The world that we live in is heaven,” says Dabice.
“We live on the most beautiful planet in the solar system, just by a chance and we are
continuingly destroying it.”
This sentiment is mirrored by the album’s cover art: a figure and a pig in nature. There’s an
intentional ambiguity there that makes you wonder if this person is leading the animal to
slaughter or its protector. “We should really be the shepherds and the protectors of everything
that we have and the world we live in,” says Dabice. I Got Heaven is an album that understands
the stakes of its message: there are countless references to fire, hunger, and holiness. Here,
teeth gnash and bodies are temples that ache with desire. On the yearning single “Nothing
Like,” which is anchored by a dancey, shuffling drum beat from Reading, Dabice’s voice
eventually morphs from a coo to a roar as she sings, “Oh what’s wrong with dreaming of burning
this all down?”
Even when the songs on I Got Heaven don’t deal with fundamental human questions about how
to live, Mannequin Pussy still finds ways to add urgency and resonance. Just take the buoyant
and playful single “I Don’t Know You,” which slowly builds to a hair-raising peak with Reading’s
brushed percussion, Steen’s enveloping synths, and a thoughtful groove from Regisford. “On
that song, I changed the tuning last minute which transformed the song but everyone
instinctively knew what to do,” says Dabice. “It was really cool to watch a song come alive in
real-time. It's such a gift to meet other people who are creatively on the same wavelength as
you, where there's no judgment in sharing ideas.”
The lightness of this track pairs perfectly with the rest of the tracklist, even when it’s snarling
rock like “Loud Bark” or punishing hardcore punk with Regisford sharing lead vocal duties on
“OK? OK! OK? OK!” “If you're a Mannequin Pussy fan, you know that we're going to have some
rippers,” says Regisford. “We're gonna have something that's going to be in your face. But we're
also going to give you something that's going to be light to the touch with its own version of
aggression.” The loud and uncompromising single “Of Her,” finds Dabice screaming, “I was born
/ Of her fire / Of sacrifices That were made / So I could make it.” It’s a song about living life
without regrets and understanding the sacrifices that you and your parents, especially your
mother, made to allow you to live the life you want.
I Got Heaven is a visceral and stunning album for people who aren’t content with the status quo,
made by people who challenged themselves and got out of their comfort zone. ”We're supposed
to be living in the freest era ever so what it means to be a young person in this society is the
freedom to challenge these systems that have been put on to us,” says Dabice. “It makes sense
to ask, what ultimately am I living for? What is it that makes me want to live?”