With You Heartbreaker, You, Jehnny Beth takes the feral intensity she honed with Savages and twists it into something darker, stranger, and defiantly sensual. Where her former band was often marked by discipline, restraint, and a sense of moral urgency, this new solo outing pushes headlong into desire. The album imagines a world where the psychosexual unease of post-punk and industrial music doesn’t only express fear or rage, but also seeks liberation through pleasure.

Beth’s voice remains as commanding as ever—part snarl, part incantation. She navigates lyrics steeped in longing, menace, and bodily urgency, delivering them with a mix of theatricality and raw immediacy. The production amplifies this mood: grinding synths churn beneath skeletal beats, guitars slash like ritual weapons, and the low end throbs with almost physical insistence. It’s music that doesn’t just describe intensity but embodies it, as if built for both the dance floor and the dungeon.

What’s most striking is how Beth reframes the power dynamics she once wielded with Savages. In that band, she projected authority, almost like a conductor holding chaos at bay. On You Heartbreaker, You, she deliberately loosens her grip, surrendering to chaos as a kind of erotic strategy. The result is an album where danger and desire blur, each amplifying the other.

The record also thrives on contrasts. One moment Beth is ferocious, nearly devouring the mic; the next, she is whispering like a conspirator in your ear. The shifts feel less like performance and more like revelations of hidden selves.

Ultimately, You Heartbreaker, You doesn’t abandon Savages’ intensity but redirects it. By channeling post-punk’s anxious edge into carnal release, Jehnny Beth has made an album that feels both menacing and liberating a work of provocation and pleasure in equal measure.