Emerging as a generation’s indie-rock champion, Rachel Chinouriri shares a viscerally honest self-exegesis on her new album What A Devastating Turn Of Events. With a renewed sense of vulnerability and urgency, the rising London artist debuts a collection as emotionally tumultuous as melodically rollicking and anthemic.

Fans won’t want to fumble their chance to see her live when she joins Remi Wolf for the second half of The Big Ideas Tour, which includes a stop at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

An Uncompromising Torchbearer of Alt-Rock

Chinouriri has long been vocal about resisting pressures to pigeonhole or morph her music into something other than unbridled alt-rock. “This album could’ve gone so many ways but I decided to try and make it reflect on my life and upbringing,” she revealed. “I could’ve made it wonky, moody, and more experimental but to get to this position has been such a struggle, especially being black and British.”

Luckily, she didn’t stray from her intention, resulting in a record that erupts and flares as an endless surge of riff-driven melodies and buoyant collisions of noisy percussion to rally behind. One where distorted guitars whine in elongated stretches and punchy indie-pop rhythms punctuate her spiraling reflections (“Never Need Me,” “All I Ever Asked”) — a byproduct of her love for the Britpop of the 90s and 00s — each urging you toward a rapt climax.

What A Devastating Turn Of Events is at its most exhilarating when filtered through this spirited cacophony. Guided by those virulent but soul-galvanizing sonics, Chinouriri accentuates the abrasive and caustic edges of her more anguished introspections while also burnishing her blunt rhapsodies until they scintillate with the triumph of her unfettering.

A Refusal to Shy Away or Sugar-Coat Her Darker Moments

Across What A Devastating Turn Of Events, you’re guided through a sweeping spectrum of personal confrontations as Chinouriri’s eviscerating lyricism ponders the bleak realities of trauma and her attempts to cope with it. The first half of the record finds her reckoning with everything from untethered homesickness to romantic dissolutions as she teeters between melancholic anxieties and biting verbal spars with toxic ex-lovers. She’s even unafraid to target her own unhealthy inhibitions and less-than-productive coping mechanisms.

When you reach the title track and midway point, the entire album takes a disorienting shift toward dismal grief. It’s at this moment that Chinouriri narrates the tragic tale of a relative who died by suicide after finding out she was pregnant, exposing the patriarchal elements that force women into desperate and life-threatening positions. From there, the record proceeds to grapple with increasingly hard truths about harmful relationship cycles as well as harrowing entanglements with substance abuse and body dysmorphia.

Tempered by a stirring and empathetic tenderness, her refusal to minimize or sugarcoat afflictions large and small imbues What A Devastating Turn Of Events with such heartwrenching potency. Chinouriri’s unflinching openheartedness uncovers the persistent hope that such lyrical honesty can assuage within and without.

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Vulnerable Storytelling

Every song on What A Devastating Turn Of Events delivers a fearless yet painfully necessary disclosure regarding the existential, emotional, and mental burdens Chinouriri has shouldered and endured.

As she unburdens herself with their telling—unloading anthems that roil and thunder with cathartic liberation—she exhumes a long-obscured appreciation for the beauty beneath all the chaos and misery. This is an album for meeting life’s reeling agonies and strife with steadfast sincerity and revitalizing faith in oneself. Its raw storytelling and inviting sound make for one of the best debut albums of 2024.

Rachel Chinouriri is currently on the road touring through the summer and fall to support her new album. Fans in Europe can see her at multiple festivals: Syd For Solen Festival in Copenhagen, DK; MS Dockville Festival in Hamburg, DE; and the Lowlands Festival in Biddinghuizen, NL. There will also be several stops in the U.K., with a set at Reading & Leeds and a concert at O2 Academy 2 in Birmingham.

She will also be joining Remi Wolf in the U.S. for the second half of The Big Ideas Tour. Dates that feature Chinouriri as the opener include back-to-back nights at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn and The Eastern in Atlanta. She will also appear at the tour’s grand finale at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.