Ashnikko’s vocal acrobatics dance all over ambitious sci-fi pop rap fairytale WEEDKILLER

Instead, they’ve emerged with a broader sound palette for their incendiary rap basis and a futuristic mythological concept to boot.

As the blue-haired purveyor of brash pop, Ashnikko’s catchy siren songs were ripe for online attention. After all, the same year their hit single “Stupid” took the internet by storm, hyper pop and emo rap ballooned and e-girl/e-boy culture engulfed everyone’s local town with sickly vape smoke. Enough to make anyone feel old, unfairly maligned noughties screamo, nu metal and all things alt found itself renewed through more palatable club-ready sounds. Part of its vanguard, Ashnikko temporarily disappeared following their Demidevil mixtape to develop a world-building full-length about fairies battling machines on a spiralling genre-mixing crash course.

Not that this expansive shift shouldn’t have been foreseen. Ashnikko’s parents exposed them to Slipknot and country music while growing up across North Carolina, Riga, and now London. They’ve collaborated with Grimes and supported Danny Brown. Now by enlisting producers Gemini, Lily Allen collaborator Oscar Sheller and 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, the production oozes to overflow with glowlight electricity, still letting Asnikko’s boastful raps morph into assured sung passages or shouty refrains, sometimes mid-sentence, sometimes mid-word. There are hushed frothy four-on-the-floor builders (“Super Soaker”), minimalist mystical rhythms with lasers (“Don’t Look At It”), the distorted percussion-centric “Chokehold Cherry Python”, and Ying Yang Twins whisper tricks on rollicking hit “Moonlight Magic”.

With personal hero MIA channelled throughout, the studio team centrepieces elements of world music backed by overwhelming party-style beats. The title track is one such-styled hoot complete with Glock noises, while opener “World Eater” showcases decadent melodies and manipulates Ashnikko’s vocals to introduce the story’s overarching technological conflict. They eerily whisper “Are you scared of me?” on “Possession of A Weapon”, valid considering the allusions to comedy horror film Teeth, while “You Make Me Sick!” is a vitriolic anthem featuring both half-rasps and full-blown angsty venom.

Like that vocal chord juggling, Ashnikko’s penned lines take two sides – one part fun, one part relatable sadness at decaying planets, horrendous exes and navigating personal relationships. The protagonist in “Worms” laughs off a world ablaze, because “nothing matters and I'll be fine / I keep my besties and Big Wheelies on my mind.” The rage of “Cheerleader” is either fuelled by personal enemies, online trolls or by “pheromones, amphetamines”, and the intoxicating dance-ready “Miss Nectarine” balances sweet vignettes of young love – “Short shorts and stolen liquor, there’s nothing I wouldn’t give her” – with an assuredness to their partner that “the boys won’t love you like I will”. In this fantasy land or otherwise, there’s real-life drama splattered throughout, equal parts coarse, harrowing and observant.

The cyber mission finishes with hushed guitars and gothic Americana hero Ethel Cain, culminating WEEDKILLER with panache. It’s a definitive project encapsulating body autonomy, queer love, humour and fury, all the more confidently told by a vocal chameleon whose performance stands out amongst the rich production traversing decaying foliage, fizzling suns and AI leaders. Ashnikko’s concept is at first unexpected but soon makes all the sense in the world.