If there’s anyone in pop who truly deserves her flowers, it’s Kesha. The past few years have been turbulent at best for the singer-songwriter, who despite a very public legal battle against alleged abuser Dr Luke, has still kept singing. Some has been promising, like the folksy confessional of Rainbow, while 2020’s High Road felt at best like a lukewarm attempt to restart the party she entered the scene with. Still, it’s beyond admirable that she’s refused to stay silent, and has stayed fighting not only for herself, but her music. These past two eras of Kesha have reflected an artist rediscovering herself and her voice, attempting to walk the tightrope between the public’s expectations of her ‘tell all’ album and her creative desire to move forward. In this sense, her latest album, the Rick Ross produced Gag Order, seems like the culmination of both these things, and if Eat The Acid is anything to go by, this is a radically reformed Kesha.
On Eat The Acid, she leans further into the unrestrained confessions and emotional catharsis first proposed by Rainbow, but rejects presenting these thoughts in any way that we might expect of her. Instead, Eat The Acid runs like a beatnik spoken word over minimal synthwave instrumentation. An icy, droning synth riff, ambient choral phrases, and sometimes nothing at all. It’s Kesha in the void of herself, exposed and surrounded by emptiness. The whole thing builds gradually, discomforting but remarkably grounded in Kesha’s vision. It’s a complete pivot from her radio friendly pop sound, though that Eat The Acid is still built around an instantly earworm hook speaks toward the unmatched brilliance of Kesha’s pop writing. Eat The Acid is confrontational while staying quiet, menacing while staying still. It’s a gut punch of a song that signals the arrival of Kesha as we’ve never quite seen or heard her before, and hints toward a future beyond the bondage she’s been irrevocably tied to for too long.
Listen to Eat The Acid below.
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