Speedy Ortiz: "Raising the Skate"

As the chorus of “Raising the Skate”—our first taste of Speedy Ortiz‘ sophomore set Foil Deer—crashes in around her, Sadie Dupuis wants to make one thing perfectly clear: “I’m not bossy,” she stresses, “I’m the boss.” Trifling exes? Toxic comment-section trolls? Every balding sound-guy who’s ever directed Dupuis—the brains behind one of the sharper indie rock bands in recent memory—towards the merch table? If you’ve ever even dreamed of diminishing Dupuis or her formidable talents, “Raising the Skate” quickly puts you and your bullshit to rest.

So Dupuis, as she does, spends “Skate” showing and proving. “Skate” finds Speedy at their Speediest: sidewinding guitars, generously applied distortion, and a vocal turn from Dupuis—conversational one minute, convulsive the next—that pulls approximately zero punches. After a quick walk around the block to gather her thoughts, Dupuis spends the rest of “Skate” chucking truth-bombs at anything or anyone standing in her way. “Just because I let you kill time dangling me from the quarry,” she remembers of some waste-of-time or another she’s long since left in the rearview, “doesn’t mean that I won’t land on my feet.” “Raising the Skate” joins a long line of songs—from “Sacred Trickster” to “Bossy” and beyond—by rad, talented women fed up with being treated as anything but. You don’t have to love Sadie; you don’t even have to like her. But you will respect her.

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