SKINNY GIRL DIET - Ideal Woman LP

"Young women are often told that they should feel lucky, not angry. Things were so much worse thirty years ago, the real struggle is over; and with feminism becoming the favoured (and necessary) cause-celebre for nearly every prominent man or woman, surely there’s nothing to worry about? We’re on the final stretch towards equality, if not already there.

The reality of the situation is why it is refreshing to hear women who are angry, and who are not hiding this fact behind a veil of acceptance or irony. Ideal Woman is a visceral display of unbridled female rage: a powerful force which is often missing in music today. From this, Skinny Girl Diet have inevitably drawn comparisons to every angry feminist ‘girl band’, from Bikini Kill to The Runaways to the Slits, for their roots in punk, grunge and metal; and just for the fact that they are a group of women who aren’t singing love songs.

But comparisons like this aren’t particularly helpful in illuminating Ideal Woman as a record. The album is the product of young women’s experiences in 21st century London, however much it may nod stylistically to its feminist predecessors. Riot grrrl in particular represented too often the white, middle-class feminism of suburbia, excluding women of colour." - The Quietus