The lime is still wet

Brat was supposed to be a season. It became a Halloween store and a graduate seminar, which is a hell of a fate for a club record. The songs are still meaner and smarter than the costume. Short, sticky, a little cruel, a little tender about being too online to sleep.

You do not need the think pieces. You need the record and a speaker and the humility to admit a pop album did cultural work a lot of novels only described. That is the review.

Still the sharpest pop object of the decade. Play it loud. Ignore the costume-party versions.