King Princess – Girl Violence

Label: section1
Released: 12th September 2025

On ‘Girl Violence’, her third and quite possibly best album yet, King Princess levels up in every direction – louder, funnier, hornier, sadder, and, crucially, freer. It’s a record that embraces contradiction: raw but polished, devastating and deeply unserious.

Opening with the title-track, lush and drenched in queer melodrama, Mikaela Straus sets out her mission statement with a raised eyebrow: “Why does no one mention girls can be violent?” What follows is a full-throttle exploration of sapphic emotional mess, soundtracked by crunchy guitars and razor-sharp hooks.

‘Jaime’ is the crush anthem of the year: painfully relatable, with a giddy pop heart (“I’ve been secretly wishing you’d date me”), while ‘Origin Story’ leans into Y2K nostalgia, a ballad that could sit neatly alongside Sugababes at their most reflective. Then there’s ‘Cry Cry Cry’, a scorched-earth kiss-off that opens with the immortal line: “Well fuck me, I thought we were friends.” Iconic behaviour.

Every song pulls a different thread – from the theatrical blues-pop of ‘Girls’ to the seductive ache of ‘RIP KP’, to the stormy closer ‘Serena’. But it all hangs together with surprising ease, a testament to the laser-focused vision behind it. There’s a sonic richness here that never sacrifices clarity for cool points. Straus isn’t afraid to be cringe, camp or carnal – she leans in. Get your heart broken, she dares on one track, before immediately doing exactly that.

It’s also just fun; even the sad songs have jokes. ‘Girl Violence’ doesn’t just earn your attention: it grabs it by the collar, snogs you, insults your ex, then leaves you weeping on the night bus. A disaster in the best possible way.