Somewhere in the last year, someone decided Esther Kohl broke into their apartment. Even though she didn’t, the rumor stuck around long enough that she started picturing herself the way she was seen in it. She wasn’t seen as a person who had a bad night, but as something enormous and uncontainable, like a kaiju in a classic Godzilla movie. So she decided to write “Godziller”, which boasts distorted power chords, drums that land like falling scaffolding, and a vocal that stays flat and deadpan right up until it doesn’t. If she was going to be the monster in someone else’s story, she might as well destroy the city.

That’s the engine running through the heart of Winner, Kohl’s debut full-length, which is out today. The Brooklyn songwriter built up this record on the same unpolished, oversized sound that powered ‘90s alt-rock and punk at their rawest. While listening through Winner, you can’t help but think of Steve Albini’s drum mic placement and L7’s refusal to soften a single edge. Esther used this energy to house ten songs to stop asking for anyone’s permission. “Wer Dream” and “Is It Worth It?” started it off, and “Godziller” is where the city is in full chaos. The record keeps circling the same confident statement: You want a monster? You’ve got one.

“A little while ago, I heard a rumor that I had broken into this guy’s apartment. That’s a wild thing to hear about yourself when it’s not true,” Kohl says. “So I started to imagine how I looked through this guy’s eyes: he clearly saw me as this huge force of destruction, so, naturally, I wrote a song where I am a monster destroying the city.”

Winner doesn’t resolve into a single, tidy moral, and Kohl isn’t interested in clearing her name or softening her edges to make the songs easier to sit with either. This record works because the verdict is left wide open on who’s the villain, and provides some of the best on what a confident female musician who isn’t afraid of softening herself can do. It’s a sound she’s already been getting early recognition for, with UpToHear pointing to her “gritty, overdriven power chords” and “Donita Sparks energy,” while Get Some Magazine singled out her “dry, self-aware” delivery. Winner is the sound of Esther Kohl confidently declaring herself to all the world, and that she’s here to stay.

Words by Matt Keenan

Order Winner by Esther Kohl HERE