Ally Evenson — Speed Kills
Strap in and double-check your brakes, everybody.
Detroit-born singer-songwriter Ally Evenson covered “Everyday Is A Winding Road" by 90s rock legend Cheryl Crow on the deluxe edition of her brilliant 2024 debut LP Blue Super Love. As it turns out, that was a sign of sorts of things to come. Evenson’s sophomore record, Speed Kills, leans heavily in a free-spirited, at times buzzing and grungy rock direction, with Crow an evident influence on several tracks throughout, alongside contemporaries like Liz Phair and other 90s alt-rockers. The result is one of the freshest and most interesting releases of the year so far.
On the surface, Speed Kills impresses with its sound. The aforementioned alt-rock production is executed to a tee, with the grittier edge present on many of the tracks giving the record that out-of-control, car crash feel that fit the title and the aesthetic of the project perfectly. At the same time, there's still plenty of room for the glitchy, unorthodox electronic elements and softer, vulnerable moments that made Ally Evenson's previous music stand out. It feels like a record where Evenson is very much staying true to herself as an artist, but evolving certain musical elements to a new level. While some influences are obvious, Evenson brings more than enough of her own musical soul to the project to avoid it sounding secondary in the slightest. Her vocals have a similarly unique energy and presence, with engaging, varied performances across the album. There's also some incredibly catchy melodies, particularly on highlight tracks like “Lucky Day", “Blame It One You", “Strawberry" or “Cards".
Then, once you look deeper, the true best elements of the album begin to shine through. Ally Evenson is a very capable songwriter, with an ability to construct fantastic, very vivid imagery, alongside plenty of cutting, emotional lines and verses that are instantly memorable; this album is a great demonstration of that, with lines like “I am a piece of all my mother's sorrow” or “Floating in the company of my own space” among the standouts. It does an excellent job of transmitting the message that healing is often chaotic and painful, much like a car crash. It feels like a continuation of sorts of the story of getting in too deep with something, or someone, that Blue Super Love told, and it's executed with the same genuine, oftentimes raw emotion. In doing this, the album is unreserved and oftentimes campy and theatrical, but in a way that is extremely compelling.
Overall, Speed Kills is a very solid record all around, one of the best of the year up to this point. It's an original, well-produced and fantastically written project that does very well to continue establishing Ally Evenson as one of the definitive artists to look out for. With two incredibly strong studio albums under her belt now, she's firmly one of the most interesting and underrated singer-songwriters of the moment, with real, genuine superstar potential.
8.3/10
