Song You Need: Mandy, Indiana’s slyly menacing “Injury Detail”

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Manchester's Mandy, Indiana excel at making an impression. On their new song "Injury Detail" the electronic four-piece barge straight into view with a combination of spoken word vocals and blasts of dramatic noise tied together by drums that hit with the heft of a monster truck. There is a push and pull to their industrial pop, hooks that pull you in closer, and a dissonance that wants to drive away anything as mushy as affection or joy. The result is cold and harsh but utterly compelling.

Produced by guitarist Scott Fair and Robin Stewart of the similarly-minded U.K. duo Giant Swan, "Injury Detail" is Mandy, Indiana's first new music since their incredibly-hard-to-Google 2021 EP ... They have returned in confident fashion, ushering in a claustrophobic mood as the various elements converge into something that feels steadily crushing. Valentine Caulfield's vocals, being both deadpan and delivered in her native French, call to mind Marie Davidson's excellent 2018 album Working Class Woman. Rather than deconstructing this world, however, Caulfield conjures up a lawless alternate reality in which nothing is as it seems. Her only instruction is to "finish off your opponent." Like Mandy, Indiana's music, it's no frills and ultimately brutal.