Mannequin Pussy - "Sometimes"

A liminal punk paradox: a passionate expression of ambivalence. I set myself ablaze / sometimes. I love the twilit gliding rush of this song, open strumming that circles and paces but never manages to resolve, and feels like it reconfigures itself on the fly. I am a sucker for a type of song I reductively mentally file as "New Order rip-offs" and while this is not one, there is a trace of that here, and maybe this is the closest Mannequin Pussy gets.  Clean chiming verses like a dream of running in slow motion through the city at dusk, and then (kicked off by a truly magnificent Marisa Dabice scream) the crushing bridge arrives like the sleepwalker jolted wide awake and sprinting through traffic, horns blaring, buses and delivery trucks bearing down. And finally, fully one-third devoted to the coda, where the song is allowed to gently disintegrate, and the spirit ascends. 

Immediately satisfying and subtle, "Sometimes" is a grower. It was one of my favorite songs of last year, and I like it even more now.