FLO – Access All Areas
FLO’s long-heralded debut record entertains while writing a single song 16 ways
For a group as outwardly confident in their esteems, their bodies, and their character as FLO lyrically purports to be, it takes the most confidence to show up to MasterChef with your trio’s signature dish being eggs, 16 ways. Not only do you have to get three people on the same page about what an egg looks like – you have to find 16 ways to not tank your reputation. Swap in sly-R'n'B/pop anthems for eggs and the world’s stage for MasterChef, and you have a situation where your greatest superlative can only be, “I cannot believe you did not mess that up worse.”
Access All Areas is an assertively, confidently, confoundingly surface level record that succeeds in presenting their lead singles with various wigs on for 45 minutes and change. What a strange and mystifying life in which that makes for a good time, yet it does. Like their AC/DC forebearers, they’ve written one damn good song so many different ways that an antitrust lawsuit for monopolizing confidence anthems is in order. From the rock slant on closer I'm Just a Girl to the 2000s girl-group bops that breadcrumb your path there, slow your cognitive gears, release your inner spirit animal with gin, and learn this lesson: if you want to dominate the world, don’t be yourself. Be them.
Listen to: Check, I'm Just A Girl, AAA