Mannequin Pussy Commit Fully to Their Contradictions on ‘I Got Heaven’

Mannequin Pussy’s I Got Heaven is a record about being consumed — by desire, by rage, by the sheer noise of being alive. The Philadelphia punk band’s fourth album runs 30 minutes across 10 tracks, and it tries to hold two things at once: the firebrand aggression of their hardcore roots and the sugar-rush pull of power pop. It works. This is the band at their most precise, their most melodic, and their most brutal.

Title Track Sets the Thesis

The record starts with its argument. “I Got Heaven” (2:59) is a snarling, hook-laden anthem that pits a guttural growl against a chorus so bright it feels like a dare. The title track poses the album’s central question: what if you could turn being crushed by desire outward, like a superpower? The band answers it across the next nine songs.

“Loud Bark” (3:04) follows with a coiled, tense verse that snaps into a cathartic release. “Nothing Like” (4:09) stretches the formula, letting the melody breathe before the distortion kicks back in.

Middle Stretch Shifts Gears

“I Don’t Know You” (3:44) is the first real shift, a mid-tempo meditation on estrangement that leans harder into the pop side of the band’s sound. “Sometimes” (3:28) keeps that mood, building slowly to a payoff that feels earned rather than forced. Then “OK? OK! OK? OK!” (2:11) arrives like a slap — a frantic, shouted burst of punk that resets the album’s energy.

“Softly” (3:27) is the hinge. It is the most vulnerable track here, a love song that doesn’t flinch. The two short pieces that follow — “Of Her” (1:34) and “Aching” (1:28) — work as interstitials, fragments that sketch out the emotional wreckage the louder songs are reacting to.

Closer and Craft

“Split Me Open” (4:01) closes the record with its longest and most ambitious track. It pulls together every thread — the rage, the self-examination, the pop instincts — and lets them collide. It is the sound of a band throwing raw emotions at the canvas and refusing to clean up the mess.

The craft is meticulous throughout. The band balances firebrand punk and intoxicating power pop without letting either side swallow the other. The rage is more deeply felt, the self-examination is more bracing, the wins more hard-fought.

My own picks from the track list:

• “I Got Heaven”
• “Loud Bark”
• “Split Me Open”
• “OK? OK! OK? OK!”
• “Of Her”
• “Nothing Like”

The Trade-Off

The only real criticism worth leveling is that the band’s earlier records had a lovelorn charisma that is sometimes missing here. Some of that warmth has been traded for sharper edges and a more focused vision. It is a fair trade, but it is a trade.

Final Word

I Got Heaven is what happens when a band stops hedging and commits fully to its contradictions. It is arguably their finest record.

2024 albums · album review · Mannequin Pussy · power pop · punk rock