We featured Chloe Slater’s last EP on the basis that it was punching far above its weight, cramming so much into something so short. The question going into her debut album Riot Youth was whether she could meet expectations, and the answer is an immediate and unambiguous yes. Chloe Slater is a unique and brilliant talent who is here to stay, and is surely going to soundtrack some very important years for a great many young women in Britain.

Mother Nature’s Killing Spree opens with a melody that sounds like it’s being sung down a phone line before a glitch arrives and the song kicks in properly with massive drums and a huge keyboard tracing a single note down the scale. We’re immediately in the territory of The Smiths and The Cure for this romantic song about the apocalypse, as Slater sings about growing up with the climate crisis looming over her entire life in a way that older generations simply won’t understood. Can I Finish Please? is an anti-mansplaining song with layers upon layers of production that are very far away from her beginnings as an open mic performer, and there’s as much political fury on Riot Youth as there is on a Lambrini Girls record, but delivered in a format you’re not used to hearing it in, which in some ways makes it hit harder. The songs that are less overtly political lose nothing in terms of passion and meaning, with Southern Youth acting as a huge highlight about homesickness. Get Me Out is the album’s most startling moment, opening with a cheeky and sarcastic delivery that shifts from light major to intense minor as the target comes into focus, and it’s a lyrical jaw-dropper. Ugly is the fastest track on the record with the most soaring chorus, returning to the apocalyptic themes of the opener, and Let It Happen closes everything with piano and harmonies, a bold and exposed ending that puts everything into focus. Riot Youth is a very good debut indeed.