Mars Argo's "Lick It Like A Kitten"
In 2018, Brittany Alexandria Sheets - known and beloved for writing and creating music under the name Mars Argo as well as Dadaist performance art for the dreamy, pastel-bubblegum Tumblr age on the "shouldicleanmyroom" YouTube channel from roughly 2009 to 2015 - posted to her @marsargo Instagram account for the first time in three years. Beginning Brittany's statement, the resilient artist informed her titanium-loyal fan base how her juridical battles with cruel ex-boyfriend / -creative 'partner' Corey Mixter had been and were to proceed. And, hopefully, she wrote to us,
"Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for showing me that there is still good in people. You have given me the courage and the confidence to come back and be who I am."
As Mars Argo, Brittany perfected the alchemy of salt-of-the-earth grunge, shimmering lavender shoegaze, velvety 2000s New Romantic and 2013 ivory icing indie-pop - a spellbinding sound the once-in-a-lifetime artist gave rawness, earthy and organic composition and heavenly harmonies on her 2023 re-recording of 2015's vulnerable hit, "Using You." Since 2019, Brittany, on her Mars Argo accounts, has begun to trust her listeners with her thoughts and truths; publishing at the beginning of 2019 her lawyer's statement that, "All rights in Mars Argo have been assigned to Ms. Sheets."
It was in April 2022, that the first new Mars Argo music would be granted to Brittany's fan base - "Angry," released on the artist's independent SICMR label (an acronym, a reclamation of "should i clean my room"), introduces Trent Reznor-esque crunching onyx-electric guitars, a snarling trap rhythm and gritty, bass-y reverberation into the artist's toolkit of lucid and luminescent dream-pop. A sonic turn perhaps inspired by Margaret Osborn's work as Alice Glass. Mars' angelic voice wraps around expressions of rage, betrayal, self-mistrust and disappointment in a culture that silences victims at the same time they forgive smiling abusers.
Up next, likewise produced on SICMR which forthcoming Mars Argo projects have been and likely will heretofore be made for, was March 2023's "I Can Only Be Me" - introduced on her social media pages by the middle-finger-wielding words "TRY TO TAKE MY IDENTITY...AND I'LL JUST CREATE A NEW ONE". Brandishing Mars Argo's previous indie rock with ska-punk drums, a blistering bass in the foreground and sizzling electric guitar licks, this second single strikes as a rock force while preserving the sugared-lavender synth-pop sensibility that Mars made her name with. The tripling of Brittany's voice in the second chorus and layering of different vocal lines in the bridge mimic a choir of aloof and stubborn young women, growing dissident with a matching eerie effect of Pink Floyd's choral vocal passages in "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" - aural motifs capturing both trapped innocence and an army of rioting dolls. This second concept reflecting in Sheets' lyrics - an unflinching pounding of the artist's history of being stolen from and silenced, and her natural ability to come back and create given novelty's coursing in her blood.
Brittany chose as the cover art for her revival musical releases a candied and powdery lavender diamond-encrusted four-leaf clover necklace hanging upon a plush-wool collared tennis-cardigan - equal parts a competitive challenge, and Sheets' happy place. Moonlight-luminous dream-pop bones and Brittany's twisting angelic vocals meet dark electronic walls of noise whether in the form of heavy metal guitars, thickly industrial reverberation or cobra-rattling hip-hop rhythms and beats on this born-again EP. To landmark June 2024's "I Can Only Be Me" EP, Brittany singled out for the leading single "Lick It Like a Kitten" - the sharpest departure from any earlier sound, operating at a time signature and with the ambition and fearlessness that takes the listener a prisoner. Blending hyper-pop and the spikiest-punk trap, early 2010s' peak trap digital bass beats and song composition and genre-pushing mid-2010s trap's chunky metallic 808s coiling make up the leading single. Stepping in to perhaps her hip-hop producer era Brittany 'samples' her own mid-1990s Mariah Carey vocal runs over the repeating aforementioned musical elements.
Binding lyrics and the artist's voice is the slow-acting poison of Hideo Nakata-gothic, a choice to make in regards to the single's subject of ensnaring and receiving sexual pleasure from an older partner. With Melanie Martinez's joining of the cutesy and the sinister, to study the latter on the artist and songwriter's terms, Brittany turns the sexualization of girlhood and fetishization of innocence on their heads. Sheets narrates a radical approach to self-empowerment, putting to use her understanding of men and their weaknesses to get what she wants. Wrapping up this review, Brittany wickedly lavishes in angel-girl decision-making and sonic decadence to make the statement that the artist sought to on this single - "Lick It Like A Kitten's" shimmering blush pink-sequinned rhythm and Sheets' rose-lacey unfurling of her lyrics adding to the power Mars exudes.
