off saint dominique EP

“I need something real,” Lauren Isenberg (aka renforshort) sings on *off saint dominique*’s “virtual reality,” a plea for her extremely online generation to log off and get outside. That desire for visceral, IRL experience has always been reflected in the Toronto singer’s music, which routinely disrupts her modern-pop sensibilities with a dose of alt-rock crunch. This sophomore EP instantly reasserts renforshort’s firebrand reputation with the gritty-grooved anti-poseur diss track “wannabe,” while the bad-romance lament “fall apart” practically positions her as the alt-metal Billie Eilish. But *off saint dominique* concludes with a pair of revelatory acoustic ballads—the string-sweetened “exception” and the ethereal dream-pop reverie “this is just a story”—that provide candid glimpses of the wounded soul lurking behind renforshort’s attitude offensive.