Unique, Memorable, and Entertaining; A Review of Ashnikko’s Demidevil
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Ashnikko‘s newest mixtape
Demidevil shows the popstar delving deeper into her many influences to create an album of varied bangers.
Demidevil sees Ashnikko experiment with new sounds, as well as creating some pop tracks that wouldn’t seem out of place on the charts. ‘Deal With It’ is one such track, which samples Kelis‘s ‘Caught Out There’ to make an angry, but catchy, breakup song.
One of the most entertaining parts of this mixtape is Ashnikko’s lyricism. We have seen in her music so far that Ashnikko doesn’t shy away from taboos, and this project is no different; she isn’t afraid to tell you that she “‘gave your girlfriend cunnilingus” on her couch. This sort of lyricism allows her to deal with all sorts of topics with unprevailing humour. The album has everything from a reworking of Avril Lavigne‘s ‘Sk8er Boi’, featuring lyrics that criticise emotionally stunted boy
Sun 24 Jan 2021 08.00 EST
âIâm shy,â lies Ashnikko, AKA American singer-songwriter Ashton Casey, 24, towards the end of Slumber Party, a lascivious, Princess Nokia-assisted booty call about oral sex. Itâs one of a handful of playfully explicit bangers that make up the pop agitatorâs debut; the culmination of a blaze of hype â started on TikTok, natch â thatâs seen her hailed by everyone from Grimes to Miley Cyrus.
You can see why Cyrus likes her.
Demidevilâs unfiltered lyrics are underpinned by an innate pop sensibility, even when the songs careen between genres. So opener Daisy finds Ashnikko spitting âbeing a bitch is my kinkâ over woozy hip-hop, before the chorus juxtaposes the bravado with a fluttering earworm melody. The bouncy electro-pop of Deal With It, meanwhile, sugarcoats the pill as she comes for an ex: âI donât need a man, I need a rabbit,â she raps over a distant vibrator.
Credit: Vasso Vu
The road leading to âDemidevilâ has been somewhat bumpy. Originally slated for release last October âshipping delaysâ held up proceedings first of all; then the mixtape was delayed again a second time. In a subsequent note to fans Ashnikko wrote that she was pushing things back to February 2021 so that she could put as much energy as possible into promoting it; you also canât help but wonder if the repeated rejigs were intended to give her breakthrough single âDaisyâ some more breathing room for standalone success. Like earlier track âStupidâ (both rose to prominence on TikTok) the song was crossing over from viral sensation to mainstream pop at the time, and gaining some major radio traction in the process â it ended up enjoying modest, but not runaway, chart success.