Review: Gin Wigmore claws through toxic masculinity, music industry with ‘Ivory’

The wolf’s distorted snarl is menacing. Its fangs drip with poison, tongue wagging, and its frizzy, frenetic fur is buried deep into the back of her head. Gin Wigmore‘s gaze is alarmed but composed, seemingly unfazed such an aggressive, bloodthirsty beast has shattered her skull wide open. Her lips lift into a soft, almost ominous, curl, and her rich eyelashes tease a trouble brewing just below the surface. The artwork of the New Zealander’s fourth studio album, Ivory, out now on Island Records, epitomizes her journey as a woman in the music business. “I found it would be a good way to show that I am ripping through to the blood and guts of what it really feels like to be a musician,” she said of the cover, designed by Liam Gerrard, an animator who works primarily in portraiture, which casts “an unflinching and unflattering eye across some of humankind and nature’s more peripheral characters,” his official biography reads.

Wigmore could not have asked for a better visual representation of the album’s 12 groove-inflected tracks, which are so visceral, at times rather gutting, that it’s as if she is re-staging a Trump Era hellscape, timeless and boundless. “It’s not what you say or do / It’s all the many ways that you break us,” she sings on “Odeum,” soaked in spacious vocal distortion, calibrated as an “open letter of sorts to the misogynist that still believes it’s okay to act so poorly towards women,” she explains. Note for note, Wigmore is a monstrous storyteller. Her fearless intent is evident right from the start. Opener “Hallow Fate” not only imprints the set’s spellbinding musical charm and ambition but alerts the listener to the damning but empowered thematic stretches present throughout the entire run time. “I’m a story you once told, a piece of gold, now last in show / You can be stronger than I am without the wing of a superman,” she taunts, fed up with systemic sexism that almost cost her her life.

Ivory is a merciless, explosive and altogether blistered pack of confessionals. Wigmore is nearly always manic, triumphing over misogynistic handlers who vowed to break her spirit in the most bloody of ways. “Odeum” is one of her more somber reprieves, while “Beatnik Trip” stumbles along like some hallucinatory, transcendent sojourn into the desert, allowing her to reemerge more self-possessed and aggressive. “I came back to the city with an open heart / It swallowed me up with all this boyish charm / But the charm won’t last past the strike of the night,” she sings, before reminding us she’ll never go down without a fight. She then unleashes another sucker-punch jab to the right jawline with “Dirty Mercy,” which sees Wigmore completely upending the sexualization of women in popular culture. She spits, thrashes and tears herself away from the tightening chock hold to reclaim her long-lost identity, perhaps a reference to her mental state while writing her last record, 2015’s Blood to Bone (“I felt rather miserable,” she said, matter-of-factly).

“I watched you burn, burn, burn / Till the many breaks, and you wash away,” she sneers, centering herself in a flurry of battering guitars, which not only bruise but vibrate from her gravel-drenched vocals. She howls as if she’s in her final moments, a breathtaking power glowing red-hot in her chest. She is both incredibly savage and spiritually woke, allowing for performances intimate and painstaking. “Cabrona,” which is Spanish slang for “bad bitch,” is a jarring stylistic swerve, dipping into Top 40-heartiness; it shimmers but remains firmly planted in southern gospel blues. With “Cold Cave,” one of several piano-based pieces on the album, she sends up a soul-baring prayer about her brokenness. She is all but defeated and implores powers that be to bless her with relief. “I need a break in the worst way / I need a break for a second, for an hour of the day / I need a heart break,” she whimpers, a godly choir of angelic singers soar into the background and offer heavenly comfort.

Ivory is a lionhearted and gnarly record, musically adventurous and enrapturing as she remains untied to convention from start to finish. “Bad Got Me Good” signals a titanic shift. Here, she marks her replenished independence. “You have taught me how to live under the scars / I bet you thought that I would I would lose me reflection in the sea you let me drown / But I can swim without you now,” she sings, well-knuckled horns tug against the song’s slink. “Hard Luck” barrels along in classic soul fashion, her heart rending in two, and “Head to Head” burns slow, harkening to the swing music of the 1950s.

It all builds to the climax of “Girl Gang,” a volcanic eruption of anthemic percussion, grunge guitars and a glossy, fevered melody. “I got bite / I got heart / I got the strength to tear it apart / I got bite / I got brains / I got the grace and power to reign,” she sings, powering on all cylinders for the album’s thematic backbone of deconstructing the patriarchy. Wigmore’s brutal, unrelenting strength is contagious, widely universal and impressively raw. Ivory is her glorious rallying cry, and we can either ignore the truth she speaks so vehemently or finally listen and join the crusade.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

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