Towa Bird
Gentleman
INTERSCOPE/POLYDOR
You don’t have to read too deeply into the message of “gentle” and “man” to know that vocalist, composer, shred-bending guitarist, and Paglia-esque theorist Towa Bird is touching on the feminine-masculine paradigm behind popular songwriting on her newest album. As far as a sophomore effort and follow-up to anything titled American Hero goes, you’d have to know that this self-identified queer Brit Filipina is out for blood while busting in the heads of the pop patriarchy—gently. If Prince fortified the raspberry-sticky pop of Around the World in a Day with his Sign o’ the Times guitar harangues, and continued on with rage-baiting lyrics, he could’ve written songs such as the trope-tripping title track from Gentleman or “Dirty Habit,” the latter complete with slap-downs of LA’s celebrity worship.
However, the highly combustible Gentleman doesn’t stop its frontal-lobe attacks or backstabbing with its first two tracks and lead singles. If The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” was the proto-punk sound of supplication, Towa Bird’s “Dog” is less about capitulation than it is forcefully “lusting to the bone” while hitting a four-on-the-floor disco beat. Sticking to the idea of ceding control, should she have titled “Your Girl” with a question mark at its close, or given “Afterglow” a sticker warning for its incendiary frankness? Throughout Gentleman, Tow Bird works her lyrical magic as a highly physicalized, animatedly actualized Simone de Beauvoir without sitting on the laurels of semantics and theory.
And in terms of creating a spiky guitar sound that maintains an Ace Frehley–like swagger and femme-punk, riot-grrrl fury, what could be better than Towa’s teaming with Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna for something as anthemic and sisterhoods-uniting as “All Gone”? Just in time for the women’s rights fights of 2026, Towa Bird is making rough, righteous rock-pop with a deep groove that’s hardly gentlemanly at all.
