During The Devil, Gwenno softly warns, “You’ll meet the devil in Brighton.” It’s a line freighted with personal history, feeling like a reference to her tenure with The Pipettes, a polka-dotted girl group that burned bright but left bruises. Their retro-pop sheen may have charmed the mid-2000s, but Gwenno’s own account of that period on ‘Utopia’ is one of fragmentation rather than fondness.
Her fourth solo album builds upon the stylistic echoes of her past. Where 2014’s ‘Y Dydd Olaf’ leaned into synth-led protest pop, and follow-ups ‘Le Kov’ and ‘Tresor’ painted Cornish surrealism with ambient brushes, ‘Utopia’ opts for something more elemental. It’s less a departure than an unburdening. The analogue synths still flicker, but they’re spectres rather than signposts.
Instead, ‘Utopia’ is concerned with earthier matters: motherhood, memory, and the pull of language.
On St Ives New School, Gwenno offers a striking but surely familiar meditation on pregnancy: “She’s growing inside me and I’m wondering who she’ll be.”
It’s a moment of crystalline sincerity and formal conviction, matched by the feather-light strings that arrive like dusk shadows, present but unobtrusive. It’s somewhere between the last two Arctic Monkeys records and the soundtrack to a Barbara Hepworth retrospective.
There’s a steadiness to ‘Utopia’, a refusal to chase momentum or drama. Its percussion is often barely audible, its melodies modest, its ambitions internal. It’s not so much a reinvention as a recalibration of an artist returning to first principles. The Pipettes reference is relevant here.
In mid-career, Gwenno has made something that feels less like a statement and more like an effortless homecoming to those coastlines of Wales and Cornwall. It’s her best work to date.
Gwenno Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed October 29 2025 - EXETER Exeter Phoenix
Thu October 30 2025 - SOUTHAMPTON Papillon
Fri October 31 2025 - LONDON EartH
Sat November 01 2025 - MANCHESTER White Hotel
Mon November 03 2025 - LEEDS Belgrave Music Hall
Tue November 04 2025 - GLASGOW Nice n' Sleazy
Fri November 07 2025 - BETHESDA Neuadd Ogwen
Sat November 08 2025 - BLACKPOOL Bootleg Social
Sun November 09 2025 - BIRMINGHAM Castle and Falcon
Tue November 11 2025 - CARDIFF New Theatre
Fri November 14 2025 - BRIGHTON St Lukes Church
Sat November 15 2025 - FALMOUTH princess pavilion
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