I’ve Seen a Way – Mandy, Indiana’s 2023 debut album – was a colourful post-industrial album that didn’t prioritise much other than its core sound. URGH advances the group’s musical language. Album #2 fuses Mandy, Indiana’s garrulousness with several other features, including stronger, punk-esque narratives that grant it an even greater life as a protest album. Magazine contains hot-tempered industrial palettes; veins are nonstop popping, in a realistic, yet very musical, act of turning the tables on an abuser. Valentine Caulfield’s battering ram-style takedowns, crucifying the furtivity of lad culture (“women cover their drinks around him, but they’re all fucking crazy, man”), become one with the comparably crushing synth-drum combos of I’ll Ask Her. Ist Halt So refuses to move in a straight line, illustrating the continued destruction of Gaza; charismatic rapping is exchanged for a pulsating, ritualistic drum loop in a heartbeat, significantly altering life with the push of a button. Sicko rises up to the pharmaceutical industry – and hey, would you look at that? A good Billy Woods feature, who would have thought?

Even if URGH were to lean on its sound in the same capacity of I’ve Seen a Way, it’d still be a better example of the talents of Mandy, Indiana. On a couple of occasions, it does do that, and it produces Try Saying; a prodigal dance collage centred on community amid division; nothing sounds like it belongs with anything else on paper – a persistent “is that you” voice snippet; a live-like, smashmouth drumbeat; vocals bellowed from a hole in the earth – but the result is a party. Many of these stuff-your-face sound-bangers stay in the group’s electro-industrial camp – see Life Hex’s demonic synth waltz, buzzing in your ears no matter the volume – and, in doing so, some cuts end up sounding like tracks from Yeezus; a forgettable, quasi-Black Skinhead beat on Dodecahedron, and a spritely new take on On Sight with Sevastopol; I love how arrhythmic the vocals are, displaying an unsettling disconnect between man and art. I guess Mandy, Indiana have made a Yeezus alternative for people who would rather not listen to Kanye West in 2026, which is most of us.

URGH sounds like its cover; weird, colourful, messy, and ultimately human. Mandy, Indiana’s second album is self-appointed noisy therapy, healing the world with extreme musical colours, all too necessary protests, and the occasional, undeniable banger.

Best tracks – Try Saying – Ist Halt So – Sicko.

Rating – 8 out of 10