All politics are personal, and the personal is universal. And so on.

Photo by Zach Hertzman

Ostensibly Little Scream's Speed Queen is "a reflection on class and poverty in America," but it's also an exquisitely constructed album that is simultaneously beautiful and melancholic and hopeful—all at the same time. Is there such a thing as laidback yet sprightly? Because that's what this sounds like.

Little Scream (Laurel Sprengelmeyer) certainly makes it clear she's not gonna mince words on the album opener "Dear Leader," singing "Now all those racists who would kill for their law and order / Can go ahead and build their walls on every single border." Later on in that song she makes it clear that change is gonna come, but the her hope is that love will overpower the chaos. And that's just the opener.

Little Scream's music is precise and delicate while remaining powerful in its convictions and adherence to pleasurable principles of aural caresses. It's an interesting gambit, putting together a political album that doesn't sound angry at all. Exploration of topics will demand action, but the exploration itself is couched in a positive packaging.

Oddly, my favorite song on the album isn't political at all (to my ears). "Switchblade" is a simple longing for love lost, one of the most simple and universal pop topics of all time, but Little Scream's lyrics are unusually effective at spooling out the aftermath of a relationship while the music is dotted with tasteful guitar curlicues and punctuations of sax that give the proceeding a timeless element.