Album Review: Ashnikko - 'Smoochies'
Dropping her highly anticipated sophomore album, Ashnikko’s chaos shines through on ‘Smoochies’ with a surprising focus.
Ashnikko has never been interested in compromise, nor has she been particularly concerned with making herself palatable to the mainstream. Her 2021 debut mixtape, DEMIDEVIL, was a neon, hyper-stylised manifesto on viral feminism, and the 2023 follow-up, WEEDKILLER, escalated that ambition into an unwieldy, high-fantasy ecosystem. Now, release of her highly anticipated sophomore album, Smoochies, the artist sheds the armour of allegory and refocuses the lens inward, presenting a work that is—in her own words—the “older sister” to the chaotic energy of her earliest hits.
The primary takeaway is that Smoochies rejects the contemporary fixation on minimalist sonic austerity, instead offering a sound that is both extreme and intensely tactile. The creative brief here is not world-building, but body-building. Recorded primarily across London and Los Angeles studios, this cross-continental effort has distilled Ashnikko’s riot-grrrl cadence with a heavier, more purposeful angle.
The first taster came in March with ‘Itty Bitty’, a track co-written and produced by veteran dancefloor architect Slinger (also known as Gemini). Where previous Ashnikko tracks often featured trap percussion underpinning cartoonish squeals, Itty Bitty’ introduces a hyperpop thump. Slinger’s influence is immediate: the bassline is less a rhythm and more a physical presence that makes itself known. Ashnikko’s vocal performance is constrained, using her signature processed snarl to deliver erotic, playful lyrics that feel trapped beneath the track’s sheer electronic weight. It’s a compelling piece of psycho-sexual electro-pop, leaning into the industrial nihilism of latter-day Arca while maintaining the infectious hook sensibility of Charli XCX at her most mischievous. It’s a declaration that this era’s hedonism will be hard-earned, not given.
The album’s core thesis—the rejection of the passive, "clean girl" ideal in favour of the messy, chaotic "Smoochie Girl"—is best articulated by ‘Trinkets’. Written by a team including collaborator Luka Kloser who has penned hits for the likes of Ed Sheeran and Addison Rae, the song is a candy-coated, sugar-bombed satire of casual dating, where the conquest is reduced to a collectible. Ashnikko repurposes the male gaze into a museum catalogue, singing about gathering men like “shiny souvenirs.” The production is intentionally jarring; the beat is a fidgeting collection of skittering hi-hats and bright, almost brittle synths that feel like they were lifted from a 2007 Nintendo DS game. It's musical kitsch, mirrored the ultra-kitsch aesthetic Léa Esmaili brought to the accompanying visual, which delights in visual clutter and doll parts. It lands somewhere between the manic energy of early Peaches and the lyrical precision of Sleigh Bells, using absurdity as a shield against sincerity.
‘Wet Like (feat. COBRAH)’, serves as the album’s most direct concession to the European club scene. This is a pure, unadulterated shot of industrial dance-pop— a track designed for sweaty, late-night floors. The collaboration with Swedish artist COBRAH, known for her explicit, high-octane EBM sound, is a brilliant piece of synergy. The two trade verses about carnal desire with unreserved enthusiasm, delivering couplets that are gleefully, aggressively sex positive. The instrumentation strips back the narrative complexity offered elsewhere, with metallic synth stabs reminiscent of early 2010s Eurodance filtered through a modern, maximalist pop sheen.
Another uncomplicated cut, “I Want My Boyfriends To Kiss’ is a progressive as it is party with a pulsating club beat that matches the energy of Kesha’s early work. Yet it never feels like these hypersexual queer anthems are ever played up or done for shock value, on other pop stars it could look forced but on Ashnikko it feels undeniably authentic.
Smoochies is not a perfect record; the dedication to maximalism occasionally veers into the exhausting, particularly as the central theme of chaotic autonomy is hammered home time and again. This is most apparent on ‘Full Frontal’ – with a throbbing beat that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Britney Spears record, the unrelentless charged approach shows no signs of stopping with lines like “feel the beat, feel my puss”.
Yet, this very messiness is its strength. Ashnikko confidently navigates a tightrope walk between the grotesque and the absurd, trading in the green-tinted fantasy of her last record for the bubblegum-pink, handbag-sediment reality of self-actualisation. It is a vital and aggressive statement that solidifies her position not as a pop star, but as a genuine disruptor of the genre.
Words by Oliver Evans
