04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Blood on the Silver Screen' Review: Sasami's Winding Path to Pop
It's not unusual for artists who come from the indie-rock sphere to try their hand at mainstream pop. There has to be a certain amount of curiosity involved, where they wonder how far a career in music might take them, and artists from Mitski, who worked with hired-gun hitmaker Dan Wilson on a song from her album 'Laurel Hell,' to St. Vincent, who collaborated at length with Jack Antonoff, have explored musical approaches that would have seemed foreign to the fans who followed them from the beginning.
At first glance, Sasami Ashworth, who performs under her first name, seems like the latest artist to travel the indie-goes-pop route. After a stint playing with the rock band Cherry Glazerr, she released a self-titled debut record in 2019 that was firmly in the realm of confessional singer-songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers—intimate, jangly and dreamy. Her second album, 'Squeeze,' was a sharp left turn, leaning on her guitar playing, which imbued heavy metal and pop-punk with an industrial sheen. In interviews leading up to her third LP, 'Blood on the Silver Screen' (Domino), out Friday, Ms. Ashworth spoke of inspirations including Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, which might suggest a naked bid for the mainstream.
