There are a lot of things about Natural Born Losers that shouldn't work: the uncomfortably confrontational cover, the death and violence-obsessed lyrics, the vocals so sweetly innocent they're practically cavity-inducing, the dark industrial soundscapes that threaten to destroy everything in their path. None of it would work if it were done solely for shock appeal, but I don't think that's Nicole Dollanganger's aim. She seems genuinely uncalculated in her approach to such material, especially considering she's been quietly releasing music that blurs the lines between naivety and depravity for some time now. Whether borne from an honest fascination with the macabre or a compulsion to expose humanity's dark side or both, Natural Born Losers is the gorgeous, unsettling culmination of Dollanganger's efforts to draw strength from the ugly by reclaiming it as beautiful.

The album catches the listener's attention immediately, for better or worse, as Dollanganger opens "Poacher's Pride" with the wide-eyed and shockingly vivid declaration, "I shot an angel with my father's rifle/I should have set it free/But I let it bleed/Made it into taxidermy/Hung it on my wall." Backed only by sparse electric guitar and subtle atmospherics, the contradictory sweetness of her voice lulls listeners into a false sense of security in the moment before the full force of the lyrics hits them, which turns lines that might otherwise seem cliched or melodramatic incredibly chilling. It's the sense of incongruity, of the wrongness of that voice singing about those things. A line like "I like it when it hurts like hell/There's nothing you could do to me I wouldn't do to myself" from "Mean" isn't shocking in and of itself but becomes so when paired with its gently cooed but startlingly earnest delivery.

From this track onward, the songs become more complex and textured instrumentally, usually building up from minimalistic keyboard or guitar beginnings into chill-inducing emotional maelstroms of unearthly vocal harmonies, sludgy guitar riffs, darkly droning synths, and thunderclap bursts of percussion. This is a far cry from the necessarily stripped-back DIY aesthetics of Dollanganger's previous releases, but it makes a huge difference, creating drama and dynamics where otherwise the songs might begin to sound too similar. Her voice has also grown to fit its new surroundings: while inarguably dainty, it never gets lost or muddled and often pushes beyond its limits into raw, unrestrained passion. "Angels of Porn (II)," a re-recording of an older track, illustrates the benefit of these changes well. The higher production values and intense build-up during key lines ("My hair is falling out again/And I don't really care") turn it from a sorrowful but slight acoustic ballad into a full-scale cathartic release.

From the disturbingly lullaby-esque "In the Land" (which tackles the degradation of women in an unflinchingly brutal manner) to the tongue-in-cheek, undeniably catchy love song to a bad boy "You're So Cool" (I guarantee at some point you'll catch yourself singing along to, "When I'm good, I'm very good/But when I'm bad, I'm better"), each track is a grittily cinematic journey into the dark heart of the American midwest. It may surprise some that Dollanganger, as a relative newcomer, has managed to cultivate such a singular vision, but the seeds of growth are clearly planted in her self-released back catalogue (which I keep linking because it's free, y'all). In Natural Born Losers, she has created an album that's as revolting as it is inviting: you know you probably shouldn't listen again, but, ultimately, you just can't help it.