When Kesha Sebert emerged in 2009 as Ke$ha she was styled as the ultimate party girl, singing EDM-tinged anthems about glugging Jack Daniels for breakfast. The emotional purge of 2017’s Rainbow, however, replaced bangers with ballads, its rock-tinged catharsis written and recorded in the midst of a legal battle with her one-time producer over claims of sexual assault. The dichotomy of her public image is summed up on the thumping electronic hoedown of My Own Dance, the second track on a follow-up focused principally on joy and pleasure. “You’re the party girl, you’re the tragedy,” she sings, before adding: “The funny thing is, I’m fucking everything.”
These multiple identities barrel into one another across High Road’s 15 tracks. Opener Tonight is a brilliantly abrasive late-night anthem, complete with a purposefully off-key, drunk-at-3am chorus, while the gospel-tinged Shadow eulogises well-earned happiness. The playful, video game-sampling Birthday Suit, meanwhile, rubs up against a delicate country ballad, Cowboy Blues, about mourning missed opportunities. The genre-hopping leads to the odd stumble here and there, but overall the never boring, often excellent High Road finds Kesha returning to the party on her own terms.
