It’s no longer about the pain and suffering others have inflicted, but about overcoming the negativity within. All image and audio content is used by permission of the copyright holders or their agents, and/or according to fair dealing as per the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The synth on "What I Want" scintillates like a Robyn dance-floor anthem; "Anything But Me," galloping in 12/8, gives off Shania Twain in eighties neon; "Kind of Girl," with it's soaring, plaintive The Chicks chorus, begs to be sung at max volume with your best friends. Since the beginning of their career, Muna has embraced pain as a bedrock of longing, a center of radical truth, a part of growing up, and an inherent factor of marginalized experience - the band's members belong to queer and minority communities, and play for these fellow-travelers above all.

That isn’t to say heartbreak doesn’t feature prominently; the rousing synths of ‘Who’ underpin frustration and rejection, and the Robyn-like ‘Never’ opens with the defining: “I don’t know if I like love, I think I’ve had enough.

Instead ‘Saves The World’ sees them look inwards, gliding from the melancholy of ‘Navy Blue’ to the hope of the climatic ‘It’s Gonna Be OK, Baby’ - a track which depicts emotional healing with powerful accuracy. Each vinyl arrived significantly warped, streaked with dark brown smudges, and skipped throughout most of Side 2. Silk Chiffon,” Muna’s instant-classic cult smash, featuring the band’s new label head Phoebe Bridgers, hit the gray skies of the pandemic’s year-and-a-half mark like a double rainbow.

So, unless you’re smart enough to get the release at the start, directly from the artist, you’re pretty much screwed when you don’t follow the artist and purchase directly from them for special product like these amazing vinyl releases.But sometimes, for Muna, after nearly a decade of friendship and a long stretch of pandemic-induced self-reckoning, the most radical note possible is that of bliss.

It’s here that Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin have enabled themselves to soar, breaking free from the shackles of failed relationships. They began making music together in college, at USC, and released an early hit in the 2017 single "I Know a Place," a pent-up invocation of LGBTQ sanctuary and transcendence. I hate having to leave such a negative review for one of my favorite pop albums, but I want to be transparent. There is a bit of surface noise throughout the record, but it does not distract from the music at all.For Naomi McPherson, Muna's guitarist and producer, it was a "song for kids to have their first gay kiss to. What other band could have stamped the forsaken year of 2021 with spangles and pom-poms - made you sing (and maybe even believe) that "Life's so fun, life's so fun," during what may well have been the most uneasy stretch of your life? Silk Chiffon," Muna's instant-classic cult smash, featuring the band's new label head Phoebe Bridgers, hit the gray skies of the pandemic's year-and-a-half mark like a double rainbow. The trio sit atop a rising spring of pure self-acceptance; powerful yet vulnerable and immeasurably relatable.