Armageddon in a Sunny Dress

According to Sunny War, the music on Armageddon in a Sunny Dress, her follow-up to 2023’s Anarchist Gospel, partly stems from hallucinations she experienced while living alone in a 100-year-old house owned by her late father. The ‘ghosts’ she was living with turned out to be gas leaks, but the disorientation produced by inhaling fumes nevertheless haunts the lyrical landscape of Armageddon. On ‘Walking Contradiction’, a punky blues propelled by a dirge-like organ groove, War and guest vocalist Steve Ignorant from Crass depict a hellscape of ‘users and abusers’ defined by the fever dreams of capitalist ‘pigs and big wigs foaming at the mouth’ who ‘look down on us, laughing, like we’ll never figure it out’. While Armageddon is suffused with War’s righteous indignation and purposeful agitation, tracks such as ‘Scornful Heart (feat Tré Burt)’ and ‘Cry Baby (feat Valerie June)’ draw upon a more soulful, rootsy side of the street.