Album: Beauty from pain
Artist: Superchick
Label: Inpop
Sounds like: Barlowgirl, Avril Lavigne

Opener “Anthem” sounds like a girl power . . . well, yes . . . anthem, but part of the message is that you can’t make the omelette of life without breaking some eggs. Much of “Beauty from pain” deals with the pain of relationship breakdowns (as “Last one picked” dealt with high school). “Bowling ball” is girl-to-girl advice to ditch the useless boyfriend, via trashy and thrashy Offspring-style rock, but “Wishes” articulates well the feeling of loss and longing after a break-up. The title track, with its piano-andstrings Evanescence-ness, tries to find a silver lining in the dark clouds.
The sound is less like the garagey sparkle of the first two albums; it’s heavier, but also more wide-ranging. An album for, to quote, “girls on boards with bruises and scars . . . girls whose fingers bleed from playing guitars.”

Nick's Rating: 4/5