Violet Grohl and I both grew up listening to 90’s grunge on the way to school in our dads truck, though the difference between the two of us is that my father wasn’t a part of shaping the genre like hers. Of course, most 21-year-olds releasing their first album haven’t already opened for The Breeders or taken the stage at Glastonbury, but Grohl’s debut LP Be Sweet to Me proves she has both the talent and storytelling instincts to back it up. The eldest daughter of Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) is quickly establishing herself as an incisive new voice in alternative rock. If one thing is clear, she knows exactly what she likes.

Grohl cites ’70s slashers and the strange Americana of David Lynch films as key inspirations, and their influence is woven throughout the album. Her appreciation for the cinematic is immediately apparent, whether it’s the endless highway drift of “Bug In The Cake” or the unsettling imagery of “Pool Of My Dreams,” where she describes being waterboarded on the shore among the river reeds.

There are easy comparisons to be made with artists like PJ Harvey and Juliana Hatfield in Grohl’s fascination with precise visual symbolism. On “THUM,” which she wrote by extracting slogans from a bottle of anti nail-biting polish, and “595,” which uses the slogan from a vintage T-shirt to cast herself as a phone sex operator, Grohl accesses a form of oblique storytelling that feels both playful and unsettling. Her writing can at times feel like peering through fan blades at a picture book being torn apart. While the quality of her lyricism occasionally waxes and wanes, she does her best work when anchored to an object or visual prompt, relying less on the broader motifs that occasionally soften her more personal material.

In places, Grohl retains echoes of the music she grew up around. Tracks like “Big Memory” play like a refreshed Foo Fighters song, but she’s equally interested in pushing beyond those familiar touchstones, drawing from pop, trip-hop, punk, and grunge in equal measure. Be Sweet to Me is cohesive, smart, and incredibly fun. More importantly, it feels like the work of an artist already developing a distinct voice rather than simply inheriting a legacy. For a debut this assured, the possibilities ahead seem wide open.