Brooklyn’s Model/Actriz have been sending dark, dance-punk reverberations through the underground since their self-proclaimed rebirth in 2020. Known for their visceral live shows and confrontational energy, the quartet broke out with their 2023 debut Dogsbody, a record that left space for your own demons to dance between vocalist Cole Haden’s ribald incantations and the band’s tightly coiled rhythms.

Their follow-up, Pirouette, builds on that foundation with sharper intent, further fleshing out their vision with abrasive elegance and sinewy tension. Haden’s gothic egotism and queer ruminations remain front and centre, solidifying the band’s place among post-punk’s most compelling provocateurs. He’s at his most potent when his come-hither soprano hits a register that rumbles in your gut—equal parts gorgeous foreboding and sexual menace, enough to make even the most self-assured man bicurious.

Only occasionally do they flirt with the overindulgence and winking self-consciousness they’ve wisely skirted thus far. Bereft of genuine hooks in favour of no-wave nebulousness and stream-of-libido atonality, the aesthetic value cannot be overstated, even as something so personal as sexual catharsis has its limits.

It’s all sleaze, relatively little indie. Joan Didion’s adage that “love is sex and sex is death” — in reference to The Doors —comes readily to mind. Whether you subscribe to that or not, the beauty is in the blurring.