Super Sunset is Allie X at her best

Her last two projects, CollXtion I and CollXtion II, saw her looking inwards to help her and those who follow her understand X – the unknown elements of her innermost self, as represented in her stage name. Now on Super Sunset, Allie X offers context to some contributing external factors, by opening up about her last five years in the city of Los Angeles. Through this, we’re given insight into a lengthy struggle to gain – and maintain – her sense of self in a setting that’s geared to warp it.

Her lyricism shines brighter than ever through this narrative. On “Not So Bad In LA”, she juxtaposes wide-eyed inexperience with a sardonic glimpse beneath the city’s shiny surface. Sarcasm transforms to barely-contained frustration during “Little Things”, as she grapples with why, for all the degrading yet unavoidable trials of Los Angeles that she manages to endure, it’s the smaller issues well within her power that affect her. However, when that frustration bursts into rage during the track’s appropriately explosive middle eight, her patience for the city gives as well, revealing a human far less disconnected than she’d prefer.

Even when Allie X delves into relationships with “Science”, she finds she can’t shut out the world around her. And so, she uses her relationship to try and romanticise it – throwing a faint rose-coloured hue over the very same scenes “Not So Bad In LA” sneered at. Her intensely emotive voice and the dynamic soundscapes built around them help further dramatise this strange amalgamation of ugliness and beauty, as she attempts to walk between living in it and becoming a part of it. This is perhaps captured most acutely on the instantly arresting “Girl of the Year” – a frantic portrayal about fighting for success while knowing your time’s nearly out. And on the deceptively calmer-sounding “Can’t Stop Now”, the clenched-jaw delivery previewed in “Little Things” makes a reappearance, as she appears to relinquish all control and let in the ugly at last.

It’s only during “Focus” that hope finds a way into Super Sunset. On it, she sings of a relationship once more, but this time one that allows her to thrive, not survive. It’s a surprisingly blissful ending to the latest chapter in Allie X’s fascinating journey - but much like the works that preceded it, Super Sunset excels by proving that regardless of how much of Allie X the human is revealed, there’s so much more to the artist that has yet to be discovered.