I Love That Stupid Mouse
Jul. 22nd, 2025 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
utilitymonstergirlThe cool thing about having a lot of artist friends is getting to see a lot of unreleased or unfinished work being tossed around casually, as if it was just another average part of their life, since obviously for them it is. At the same time, though, even though these artists will share this stuff with you freely if you're, as they say, 'in the know', you get the feeling that they wouldn't want it to be seen this way to the larger audience they're creating for - as something that can be placed into the context of a life.
—Car Seat Headrest, Is This Dust Really From The Titanic?
I never thought UGLY DEATH would feel soothing and optimistic, but here we are.
Ada Rook released a new album, UNKILLABLE ANGEL, the day after the Grammys. It's her first solo album since 2023's God Cum Poltergeist, and her first since the breakup of Black Dresses the previous May.
To be clear, I have no desire to sift through this for Drama Lore. While several tracks of ANGEL are condemnations of people once close to her, they're much more Mr. Morale than Not Like Us. Taking sides in strangers' social schisms remains deeply distasteful and unhelpful, and I will discuss the album with as little reference to this context as I can.
Much of Rook's solo work involves the binary-star themes of raw vulnerability and "you don't know me and I'm not your friend." Taken alongside her porn career, there's an implicit message of "I'd rather you jack off to my tits than my trauma." Watching her videos is far less intrusive than trying to sleuth out every subliminal in her songs, and while I can't know if she feels totally unconflicted about making porn, hand-wringing moral anxiety over it is exactly the kind of presumptuousness she'd hate. Ultimately, it's just that music isn't uniquely authentic, and porn isn't uniquely exploitative.
Okay, onto the album.
We start off strong with cortisol_inside cortisol_explosion excessive_cortisol cortisol_everywhere, with a title riffing on e621 tags about cum. As harsh as it was, UGLY DEATH started with easing us into its soundscape; no such mercy here. The thesis statement is as blunt as ever, though, but brash and confident rather than withdrawn and spiteful: wanna fuck me up? wanna call it love? / you can do what you want cuz i know what im not. It lays out the soundscape of the album nicely, too: a similar palette to UGLY DEATH but faster, harsher, and bringing in some new vocal samples.
PARTY TIME SEXY DISORDER is a grim reflection of 5H4D0W H34R7Z; we've gone from "freedom is meaningless if you can't crash the fuck out" to "what else would I even use it for?" I wanna be best friends and stupid sluts has become i wanna get fucked up / i wanna fill you with cum / i wanna lose the respect of everyone i love. And as raw as this is, there's still the reminder not to get overfamiliar:
everybody wants sympathetic light
traumacore doing numbers on spotify
everybody wants to be so hardcore
like you're real? that's great
i'm fake and it's tight
RAT KID LIFESTYLE feels akin to GRAVITY WEAPON, the track that'll go hardest at a rave. That SQUEAK SQUEAK audience bit will fuck tremendously.
ALL Tails Deaths Animations reminds me of The True Legend of Tails Prower from her friend/collaborator Porpentine, a harsh queer reimagining of Sonic lore with the immortal opening line i feel like if anyone gets called a brain slur in the Sonic universe it would be Tails. i think Tails has a learning disability. But here, we've flipped from transfem Tails to Tails being a more appealing option than being transfem: i guess i am a girl / but if i was miles prower / i'd detransition in a heartbeat. (The connections to Rook in a Sonic costume are left as an exercise for the reader.) It's got a wonderfully anthemic chorus that calls back to TRU U:
running screaming into the night
im over chasing the light
im gonna force my own way
you're a coward or youre out of your mind
and i dont wanna be right
cuz u will see me someday
something waking deep in ur heart as u stare
wish u could follow me u could never
//
THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER:
INSIDE YOU'RE LIKE ME!!
YOU SHINE SO BRIGHTLY
IN THE FREQUENCY THAT ONLY FREAKS LIKE ME CAN SEE
I CAN SEE YOU LIKE A DEER IN HI-BEAMS
You're no longer just in the gutter together; you wish you could climb into the gutter.
I don't have much insightful to say about RUINESS, but it's another banger with a hell of a chorus. It's apparently named after a Porpentine game that I haven't played yet, but neither has Rook.
CLOUT STRIFE parallels COWARD 2 COWARD, the bluntest frustration with parasocial fawning: as she's said elsewhere, When the pressure is on / All the attention looks the same. Niche subcultural fame can be just as crushing as A-list fame; being a big fish in a small pond gets suffocating fast.
The YOURSELF quartet is the most pointed and personal set of breakup songs, and so it's what I'm the least comfortable digging into. weed store kratom and holding your sleeping body... continue the theme with more introspection; the latter feels like an even more harrowing version of asphalt. I don't think I've listened to holding your sleeping body... in full more than once or twice. It feels like transgressing some boundary that should stay inviolate, but I suppose that's the point - if you want drama so bad, here's the most excruciating closeup of it possible.
sun's violent arc is the hard-earned happy ending. It might feel trite from somebody else, but it hits hard with its callbacks to songs like MY HEART BEATS OUT OF TIME and 666:
never found a place i belonged
always too weird, not weird enough
the cracks are deep
and i'm still falling it's just
a fact of life and of love
but i'm okay cuz you're falling with me
and i've caused so much pain
made so many mistakes
but when you're there
i am someone better
and though the haunted days
can never be erased
when i'm with you
they are only weather
I don't know who this is about. I have no business knowing that. But I have no doubt that she means every word.
This isn't a review; I can't pretend to be remotely objective about this. A week after this dropped, I had a great time listening to it front-to-back during a trans-Pacific flight to see Lum. It's been a lovely addition to my music library on trips through the city. I'm happy that Rook has gotten back into making music this year, what with naiad and DOOR EATER, even though she'd be fully justified in dropping off the face of the Earth forever.
—Car Seat Headrest, Is This Dust Really From The Titanic?
I never thought UGLY DEATH would feel soothing and optimistic, but here we are.
Ada Rook released a new album, UNKILLABLE ANGEL, the day after the Grammys. It's her first solo album since 2023's God Cum Poltergeist, and her first since the breakup of Black Dresses the previous May.
To be clear, I have no desire to sift through this for Drama Lore. While several tracks of ANGEL are condemnations of people once close to her, they're much more Mr. Morale than Not Like Us. Taking sides in strangers' social schisms remains deeply distasteful and unhelpful, and I will discuss the album with as little reference to this context as I can.
Much of Rook's solo work involves the binary-star themes of raw vulnerability and "you don't know me and I'm not your friend." Taken alongside her porn career, there's an implicit message of "I'd rather you jack off to my tits than my trauma." Watching her videos is far less intrusive than trying to sleuth out every subliminal in her songs, and while I can't know if she feels totally unconflicted about making porn, hand-wringing moral anxiety over it is exactly the kind of presumptuousness she'd hate. Ultimately, it's just that music isn't uniquely authentic, and porn isn't uniquely exploitative.
Okay, onto the album.
We start off strong with cortisol_inside cortisol_explosion excessive_cortisol cortisol_everywhere, with a title riffing on e621 tags about cum. As harsh as it was, UGLY DEATH started with easing us into its soundscape; no such mercy here. The thesis statement is as blunt as ever, though, but brash and confident rather than withdrawn and spiteful: wanna fuck me up? wanna call it love? / you can do what you want cuz i know what im not. It lays out the soundscape of the album nicely, too: a similar palette to UGLY DEATH but faster, harsher, and bringing in some new vocal samples.
PARTY TIME SEXY DISORDER is a grim reflection of 5H4D0W H34R7Z; we've gone from "freedom is meaningless if you can't crash the fuck out" to "what else would I even use it for?" I wanna be best friends and stupid sluts has become i wanna get fucked up / i wanna fill you with cum / i wanna lose the respect of everyone i love. And as raw as this is, there's still the reminder not to get overfamiliar:
everybody wants sympathetic light
traumacore doing numbers on spotify
everybody wants to be so hardcore
like you're real? that's great
i'm fake and it's tight
RAT KID LIFESTYLE feels akin to GRAVITY WEAPON, the track that'll go hardest at a rave. That SQUEAK SQUEAK audience bit will fuck tremendously.
ALL Tails Deaths Animations reminds me of The True Legend of Tails Prower from her friend/collaborator Porpentine, a harsh queer reimagining of Sonic lore with the immortal opening line i feel like if anyone gets called a brain slur in the Sonic universe it would be Tails. i think Tails has a learning disability. But here, we've flipped from transfem Tails to Tails being a more appealing option than being transfem: i guess i am a girl / but if i was miles prower / i'd detransition in a heartbeat. (The connections to Rook in a Sonic costume are left as an exercise for the reader.) It's got a wonderfully anthemic chorus that calls back to TRU U:
running screaming into the night
im over chasing the light
im gonna force my own way
you're a coward or youre out of your mind
and i dont wanna be right
cuz u will see me someday
something waking deep in ur heart as u stare
wish u could follow me u could never
//
THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER:
INSIDE YOU'RE LIKE ME!!
YOU SHINE SO BRIGHTLY
IN THE FREQUENCY THAT ONLY FREAKS LIKE ME CAN SEE
I CAN SEE YOU LIKE A DEER IN HI-BEAMS
You're no longer just in the gutter together; you wish you could climb into the gutter.
I don't have much insightful to say about RUINESS, but it's another banger with a hell of a chorus. It's apparently named after a Porpentine game that I haven't played yet, but neither has Rook.
CLOUT STRIFE parallels COWARD 2 COWARD, the bluntest frustration with parasocial fawning: as she's said elsewhere, When the pressure is on / All the attention looks the same. Niche subcultural fame can be just as crushing as A-list fame; being a big fish in a small pond gets suffocating fast.
The YOURSELF quartet is the most pointed and personal set of breakup songs, and so it's what I'm the least comfortable digging into. weed store kratom and holding your sleeping body... continue the theme with more introspection; the latter feels like an even more harrowing version of asphalt. I don't think I've listened to holding your sleeping body... in full more than once or twice. It feels like transgressing some boundary that should stay inviolate, but I suppose that's the point - if you want drama so bad, here's the most excruciating closeup of it possible.
sun's violent arc is the hard-earned happy ending. It might feel trite from somebody else, but it hits hard with its callbacks to songs like MY HEART BEATS OUT OF TIME and 666:
never found a place i belonged
always too weird, not weird enough
the cracks are deep
and i'm still falling it's just
a fact of life and of love
but i'm okay cuz you're falling with me
and i've caused so much pain
made so many mistakes
but when you're there
i am someone better
and though the haunted days
can never be erased
when i'm with you
they are only weather
I don't know who this is about. I have no business knowing that. But I have no doubt that she means every word.
This isn't a review; I can't pretend to be remotely objective about this. A week after this dropped, I had a great time listening to it front-to-back during a trans-Pacific flight to see Lum. It's been a lovely addition to my music library on trips through the city. I'm happy that Rook has gotten back into making music this year, what with naiad and DOOR EATER, even though she'd be fully justified in dropping off the face of the Earth forever.
