As Smerz, Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt are interested in the uncanny valleys and surreal messes of young adulthood, down to the Bama rush-meets-Blair Witch cover art of 2018’s Have fun EP. Their forthcoming new record, Big city life, is a series of nights out on the town plumed in cigarette smoke, and “Feisty” might be the rowdiest of the bunch, like an episode of Girls (which turned 13 yesterday) in miniature. Time skips around when you’re on the verge of blacking out, and Stoltenberg’s droll narration glimpses the moments—checking your ass in the bathroom mirror, running into the guy you matched with on Tinder months ago, futilely petitioning the DJ to change the track—that disappear in a strobe flash. With chintzy string stabs and grime-caked live drums, she and Motzfeldt are on their ESG shit, and the only question worth taking seriously is Can you move to it? Like most parties, “Feisty” ends with a moment of introspection, maybe regret, but I’m partial to this earlier line: “Hey girl, I really wanna be your friend/Let us talk and dance until the end.” The end of the night? The end of time? Out on the floor, it hardly matters.
