“I was really thinking about flipping this narrative about female and femme characters being victims, or dominated by this male energy within heavy rock music,” Ashworth says. “I wanted to make an album with femme characters being the opposite of a victim – more of a villain and a perpetrator of aggression.” It’s a viewpoint that becomes evident right from the start of the record, with the opening song “Skin A Rat” immediately detailing the deep rage against systems of inequality. “Hell-fucked economy!” she belts on the track, over screeching electric guitars. “Crisis identity!”

Much like the coils of the central serpentine figure, everything within Squeeze is twisting – both in terms of tightening the grip on those it calls out and being malleable and open to a variety of musical genres and moods. When choosing the title, Ashworth was drawn to the word’s different meanings. “I like the multi-dimensions of ‘squeeze’,” she says. “It can be an endearing hug, holding on to hope, or a violent grasp or choke. It’s a Rorschach test of a word that projects something different based on what you feel, and I wanted the album to have that fluidity too.”

It’s dizzying, exciting, and sometimes overwhelming material, but it also comes with welcome moments of rest to balance things out. Standout track “The Greatest” goes in a different direction and harnesses the equally punchy thrills of 80s power ballads (think Heart’s “Alone”), detailing a powerful relationship that ended too soon. When all the intense feelings have been burned through, Squeeze concludes on a metaphysical note with the beautifully epic “Not A Love Song,” that ascends above the crashing sea of heartbreak and vitriol, imploring listeners to think beyond the problems affecting them in their own respective bubbles and think in a universal sense. “After so much focus on these very human themes about communication, relationships, societal fractures, and oppression, I wanted to loosen the perspective a bit and shift it higher, more existential,” Ashworth says about the closing track.

It’s not all about feelings of spite, longing, and existentialism, though. At the end of the day, Ashworth doesn’t take herself too seriously – it’s part of why the web of emotion she expresses feels so genuine. “I like to provide chaotic wildness with a mix of tongue and cheek,” she says matter-of-factly. “I really don’t find my music to be so self-serious. It’s somehow violent and aggressive while also being wholesome – which is like, kinda my vibe.”