The return to GIRLSPERM! Five years after their debut LP, Layla, Marissa, and Tobi are back with The Muse Ascends, and it continues to be a tall order to describe the band without employing the term “girl gang.” The GIRLSPERM turf stretches directly between the feminist/minimalist no wave territory of ROSA YEMEN/Y PANTS and the ’90s agit-punk revolutionary racket of Slampt Records, with sloganeering vocals (almost always presented in a unified front of ecstatic three-part shouts), treble-sharpened switchblade stabs of twin guitar, and a structural austerity within their concise art-punk outbursts that demands each member’s instrumental contributions be placed on completely equal footing, engaging in a sonic call-and-response trust dialogue with one another as a means of defense against the squares and creeps of the world. When they subvert the signature organ riff from the ARCHIES’ bubblegum smash “Sugar Sugar” into a halting single-string anti-solo on “Sugarcide,” it’s a clear statement of intent—the history of rock music as we know it only exists to be reshaped in GIRLSPERM’s image.