Imogen Valentine releases infectious Pop Punk revivalist hit 'Expiration Day'!

Imogen Valentine further stakes out her own niche inside the burgeoning pop-punk-revival of the early 2020s, with her newest effort 'Expiration Day', slotting into the throat-scratching abandon and tongue-in-cheek witticisms of the best that genre can offer. 

Rising from a new-wave-inspired flanged chug like a graceful ocean wave barely seconds away from crashing down from its frothy peak, it doesn’t take long for the track to roundhouse kick into a power-chord tsunami. Jockeying the crest of the tide, Imogen launches her bitter kiss-off’s vocalisations (through a canny use of clipping and distortion) alongside the jagged-glass guitars swelling underneath. Her sticky lollipop intonation’s gradual decay pushes forward the empowering, yet bullshit-weary lyricism with a hearty eye-roll. 

The overhanging metaphor of this toxic dalliance being akin to a “bad investment” signals Imogen’s tiredness with the careless attitude to love propagated in modern-day culture. She exclaims she’s eagerly celebrating their mutual lovelessness, but she ensures it’s not a one-sided diatribe: without shifting the core blame, she concludes the experience can be “another lesson” to better approach and sculpt her autonomous future.

All in all, it’s a hair-raising tune that forms part of a wider genre renaissance without sacrificing its own full-blooded catharsis.