Album review: Christine and the Queens, Chris

Christine and the Queens is back and more free than ever. Photo / Getty Images

The sophomore album from France's Heloise Letissier - aka Christine and the Queens - is a celebration of a person who has found and completely embraced themselves, and it sounds like exactly like you'd hope.

It's upbeat pop with a tonne of cool 80s synths, punchy percussion and lyrics that simultaneously offer a middle finger and a peace sign.

Ahead of the album's release, Letissier unveiled her more masculine persona, rebranding herself "Chris", telling the New York Times Chris is a "horny, hungry and ambitious" woman who is done trying to fit in.

Emboldened by her new look and newfound identity, Chris sings fearlessly about everything from sex and gender to suicide and God.

What's especially great about Letissier is she sings in a mixture of English and French and now Spanish too, and even if you don't know the language or the English is broken, it somehow feels seamless.

The Walker sounds like a walk in the park, but in it she describes violence and pain in a song about authenticity in the face of adversity, singing: "It hurts, I feel everything / As my sense of self's wearing thin / Such pains can be a delight / Far from when I could drown in my shame".

And on the funk-filled Doesn't Matter, which sounds like a party track, she sings about "the suicidal feelings that are still in my head" and wonders "if after the void there is somewhere else to fall".

These tracks are poppy and fun but they're also saying something worth saying and that's the best kind of music, especially now.

Letissier has embraced her truth, lust and all-out queerness and shoved it in the faces of everyone who doesn't accept it, and in doing so in a way that sounds so damn good, she's cemented herself a place pop history.

Christine and the Queens, Chris

Artist: Christine and the Queens
Album: Chris
Label: Because Music
Verdict: A delightful, pop-filled celebration of sexuality, self and freedom.