Hypocrite

Lush's "Hypocrite" is shoegaze sharpening into Britpop bite, a moment where the London band traded some of their earlier dream-pop haze for jangling immediacy and lyrical venom. Miki Berenyi's vocal — cool, clipped, faintly sneering — rides a bright rush of chiming guitars and propulsive rhythm, the whole thing moving with a brisk pop confidence that still carries the shimmering guitar treatments of their 4AD roots. The emotional landscape is unabashedly angry, a woman calling out a two-faced lover or friend with a directness that feels almost gleeful, the melody sweetening a genuinely acidic sentiment. There's liberation in the delivery, the sound of someone done making excuses for another person's dishonesty. Lyrically it's plainspoken and cutting, the title doing much of the work while the verses pile up small betrayals. Culturally the track sits at the mid-1990s pivot when several shoegaze acts, Lush among them, brightened their sound to meet the Britpop wave, and here the reinvention suits Berenyi's flinty personality. The production is glossy but muscular, guitars stacked without drowning the vocal. It's a song for the moment you finally see someone clearly and stop caring what they think — best played loud while getting ready to walk out a door, chin up.