Allison Crutchfield minted her knack for writing soda pop rippers with Swearin’’s immaculate “Just,” back in 2012. “I just want you to love me/Whoa oh oh oh oh oh oh,” she sang then, matching the song’s rugged jangle with her equally straightforward desire. On “Dean’s Room,” the first track from her forthcoming solo debut, Tourist in This Town, the music’s just as simple: thwacked drums that march tarnished synth glitz right out of 1987 and into a euphoric handclap-heavy frenzy. “You just wanna catch me alone!” she sings.
But rather than a neat game of cat-and-mouse, the situation isn’t as clear-cut. Someone’s spying on her while she dances, they “ask for forgiveness all while maintaining your innocence,” yet still she dances “with the devil in the broad daylight.” There’s no knowing who holds the power—she sleeps on the mattress on the floor, they crawl “like a roach at my feet”—but there’s a glorious defiance in the way “Dean’s Room” overrides the chaos, spewing like a pack of Mentos dropped into a liter of Coke, and feels just like heaven.
