With Horsegirl confirmed as openers for Black Country, New Road's summer North American tour, it seems like the right moment to revisit why Chicago's Horsegirl have become one of indie rock's most quietly important young bands. Versions of Modern Performance, their 2022 debut on Matador, is the answer — a scrappy, strange, occasionally brilliant debut that sounds like three people who grew up listening to post-punk and decided to make music that honored the energy without imitating the form.
The album is named after a concept from Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, which tells you something about the band's intellectual ambitions and nothing about what the music sounds like. What it sounds like: coiled, slightly tense guitar rock with hooks that emerge when you're not looking for them, production that captures the band at its most alive without cleaning them up.
Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece make a particular kind of music that rewards close listening: lyrics that seem simple until they're not, arrangements that develop in directions you didn't anticipate, a rhythmic looseness that somehow holds everything together. 'Billy' is the obvious single — a tight, slightly manic piece of guitar pop that lives in the exact space between catchy and weird. 'Homage to History' is where the band sounds most themselves.
Versions of Modern Performance was one of 2022's best rock albums, finishing high on year-end lists at Pitchfork, Stereogum, and The Wire. It's the kind of debut that matters: original enough to stake a claim, accessible enough to find an audience, and with enough depth to remain interesting years later.
Opening for BC,NR is the right assignment for Horsegirl in 2026. Both bands operate in the post-punk-adjacent space without being post-punk revivalists. Both have found ways to make familiar sounds do unfamiliar things. Whatever Horsegirl's second album sounds like, the debut has earned our full attention. Grade: A-.