Hi, everyone. Fluthony Vaxxtano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Rachel Chinouriri project, What a Devastating Turn of Events.

Here we have the highly anticipated and warmly received debut full-length album of singer and songwriter, Ms. Rachel Chinouriri, an artist who has been having quite the 2024. For an up and comer, obviously, it's always exciting to get your first proper album out there into the world. Rachel was certainly ready to do it this year by leading up to this project with a bunch of EPs, one of which in 2021 was my EP of the year. It was this great little project where she was giving us this very low-key, spacey, difficult to define fusion of pop and R&B and electronic music.

It's the thing I think a lot of people right now would categorize as alt-pop. And while the sound on this album was most certainly beautiful, and lush, stand out, something she certainly could have continued with, she's actually undergone a pretty definitive stylistic reset in the past few years, pushing her sound in more of an indie and pop rock direction, which has led to a surprisingly positive response with this record charting at number 17 in the UK, getting some rave reviews from critics and pop girlies alike.

Oh, and also receiving an on-stage endorsement from Adele. Yes, that Adele.

So yeah, with this record, Rachel certainly has a lot to be proud of and excited about. And it's most certainly a generous offering with 14 tracks that run 49 minutes and change. And yeah, again, with the sound of this record, Rachel gives us a pinpoint focus on this rock transition she has made, dishing out some pretty sticky and anthemic songs in the process, like "All I Ever Asked", which if you've been listening to Rachel's music for a minute, is a holdover from an EP she dropped a few years ago, but it still sounds pretty great in the context of this tracklist. Pretty strong and cute chorus.

There's also lead single "The Hills", which features a pretty classic loud soft, dynamic, where the guitars get pretty blaring and shoegaze-y on the hook. Rachel's gentle vocal harmonies managed to slice through the haze pretty effectively, too. There are some pretty telling lyrics on the track as well that feel like Rachel really diving into the pretty well-documented struggles she had as a kid with fitting in in her hometown.

It's a thoughtful and introspective outsider anthem of sorts, and similar sentiments are expressed on the track "I Hate Myself", which is a track that's all about learning to love yourself regardless of your size, your color, even if your mind is confronting you with reasons that you shouldn't.

"Never Need Me" is another standout single from the record, one that still gives us a dose of pop rock, but with maybe more of an there's some 80's flair, there are some synthesizers hiding in the mix and a sheen on the drums as well. It's almost giving the Killers to an extent, especially with those ringing guitars on the hook. And yeah, lyrically, the track is essentially about leaving somebody in such a way to where you're just completely over them. No hard feelings. You're just planning your own solo life at this point, and you're done. Of course, there's a lot of illusions to the other person being clingy, holding Rachel down to some extent. I just love the specifics of the scenario that's being described as well as the soaring chorus, which goes a long way, too.

Rachel also teased toward this album with the title track, which is one of several moments on the record where she's really flexing her storytelling muscles as she tells the tale of a young girl who ends up meeting with her first that are only to be abandoned and left to have a baby out of wedlock.

Going deeper into the record, "Robbed" and "Cold Call" may not have been formal singles, but they're certainly as catchy and well-assembled as anything else on the LP. They really scratch that slow, indie, sad girl itch while also bringing some pretty raw and punching moments, too.

So certainly there are a lot of highlights on the record, and for sure, nothing terrible. But there are some key tracks that I think could have been improved and show Rachel in a state where she is still developing her sound going in this direction. The super dry, acoustic cuts contribute, I think, to a bit of a one-dimensional sound on the album. They're not intimate or strict back or low-key enough to truly work as acoustic cuts and simultaneously, they're not colorful or built up enough to really pop off either. They just inhabit this odd middle ground of sorts.

"Dumb Bitch Juice" and "It Is What It Is" are two more cuts where Rachel is really leaning in on the storytelling, but the choruses aren't strong enough or stand out enough to really pull the narratives together. The latter of these two tracks, broadly, just feels like a weird ripoff of that whistling Peter Bjorn and John song.

Meanwhile, "My Everything", while I do like the lazy off-kilter grooves this track rings as well as the song itself. The opening and recurring vocal harmonies on the track are so weird and malformed. They come off like a failed Dirty Projectors vocal harmony experiment. Then surprisingly, "My Blood" goes full Coldplay mode with the acoustic guitars and the grand string sections at the very end, which I could sense that influence being embodied in a way that is genuine and pretty accurate to that style, but I don't know if it's necessarily a sound that Rachel thrives on top of.

With that being said, I will say, generally, despite much of the songwriting on this record being impressive and very high quality, Rachel is yet to truly carve out a niche within the direction she's moving in here. What I mean by that is obviously this record is trying to appeal to a lot of rock and pop sensibilities with the punchy beats and sharp choruses and loud guitars. But it's also trying to have its cake and eat it, too, in a sense. As vocally, Rachel continues to play things off very, very, very subtle. Moving forward, I hope Rachel and her producers decide whether or not they want to maybe potentially pair some stronger, more passionate, more voluminous vocal performances with instrumentals that could go just a bit harder, or help her find ways to continue exploring these genres while actually dialing things back to where we are getting some of the more raw and maybe more nude and spacious and atmospheric sounds that defined her past couple of EPs, which aesthetically, I think, would be a more natural fit for her very breathy and understated vocals.

Either way, there's still a lot to enjoy about Devastating Turn of Events. And there's no wonder why she has been gathering as much attention as she has behind this record because it is one of the most solid songwriter debuts out of the UK this year, which is why I'm feeling a decent 7 on it.

Anthony Fantana. Rachel Chinouriri. Forever.