Detroit noise-pop singer-songwriter Zilched (Chloë Drallos) released her newest  single and self-directed music video: “Sixteen.” The song follows “Velcro Dog” from debut album DOOMPOP – out this Friday, October 23 via Young Heavy Souls. Like “Velcro Dog,” “Sixteen” is buoyed by the dynamic between Drallos’ sweeping grunge guitars and frequent collaborator Nick Russo’s frantic drumwork. “It’s more or less about questioning both what marks a loss of innocence, and the like obsessive purgatory of waiting for your life to start,” Drallos says.

Inspired by the albums that helped Drallos navigate her teen years like Nirvana’s Nevermind or The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, DOOMPOP is full of headbanging earworms that tackle the challenges of growing up and the universal effects that has on one’s mental health. Drallos explains, “It’s an honest reflection of my attempts to grow up and make sense of absurdity. I wrote the first song in my last month of high school at 18 and finished recording/producing just a month after my 20th birthday. With these songs I wanted to go as deep into my insecurities and confusion, however immature I felt. Just write what I felt when I felt it in order to move on.” 

Drallos has been making music as Zilched since the summer of 2017. Her debut EP Pulling Teeth was released in 2018 and provided the first glimpse of Zilched’s dizzying, wildly unpredictable noise-pop. In the buildup to DOOMPOP, Zilched released “Sleeper” earlier this year, following “The Morning” and “Blue Doom” in 2019. Alongside Drallos, collaborator Nick Russo provides a droning percussive force—and when the correct pieces are in place, Zilched embodies the notorious ethos of its hometown, Detroit: anxious poetics and a dark, underlying force that leads us into the unknown