Lauren Denitzio makes music that has explicit use-value. Their writing has explored and celebrated the nuances and realities of queer identities, with a voice both gentle and critical. With their punk band Worriers, Denitzio has created Survival Pop, a new record that, above all else, is a utility to explore, affirm, and celebrate the changing experiences of queer identities over time.
In a statement about the record, they explained, “I wrote the majority of the songs on this record thinking about what past versions of myself would’ve needed.” The album works through Denitzio’s past while reconciling it in the context of their present. “Future Me” is an affectionate note to their younger self, cataloguing the resonant traumas that contribute to their present. “I relive those years like phantom limbs,” Denitzio sings over crashing Weakerthans-like guitars and fierce drums. On opener “My 85th Rodeo,” they’re sardonic in their takedown of pain: “Laugh when I hate everything!”
The result of all of this is a record that’s an empathetic, representative resource for coping with trauma, identity, and change that both troubles and clarifies those two things. Most records can be contorted into personal applicability, no matter how distant they are to our reality, but Denitzio has written a sort of punk rock template with the express purpose of speaking to queer experiences. Affirmative texts can be life-saving, and Survival Pop certainly lives up to its name: an anthemic collection of songs to buoy hopes and spirits with the promise of progress.
—Luke Ottenhof
