Manchester-born artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Freak Slug releases her striking second album Amulet today via Future Classic, marking the most self-assured chapter yet in the story of one of British alternative music’s most distinctive voices. LISTEN HERE.

Following her critically acclaimed 2023 debut I Blow Out Big Candles and breakthrough single ‘Radio’, Amulet sees Freak Slug, the moniker of Xenya Genovese, push deeper into the strange, intimate world she has been steadily creating, trading some of the hazy bedroom pop of her early work for something darker. Across the album, slacker alt-rock, driving rhythms and washed-out guitars provide the backdrop for her most poetic songwriting to date. Written between London and Los Angeles alongside longtime collaborator Dylan Neustadter, the songs began, as they always have for Freak Slug, with nothing more than her voice and an acoustic guitar, before growing organically into loose, instinctive arrangements of bass, drums and swirling guitars.

At the heart of Amulet is Genovese’s relationship with spirituality – something she explores on record with a new sense of openness and confidence. The album was born from a spiritual reading undertaken while searching for answers around feelings she had carried since childhood, leading her to a story she interpreted as a connection to a past life as a healer: a woman whose abilities were forced into secrecy at a time when they were considered dangerous. Rather than approaching that history with fear, Amuletfinds Genovese reclaiming the idea of her own power in the present day. The record becomes a way of exploring what it means to inherit pain, intuition and strength, while finally feeling free to embrace the parts of herself she may once have hidden.

“Amulet is the most personal work I’ve done so far. It’s about me expressing my spirituality, without shame and owning it confidently, and not having to hide it just cos it’s looked down on,” says Freak Slug. “It ties to a past life where I had to keep my healing abilities a secret, and it was dangerous back then, and now I can actually enjoy it in this life because it’s not dangerous to be gifted. Amulet is about my past life as a healer. Now I don’t have to be scared of my own power or hide away from my own power cos I own it, and if someone has a problem with that they can go fuck themself.”

Songs including ‘Big Boy’, ‘Black Eyes’ and ‘Serpent’ explore the historical persecution of women whose knowledge and connection to the natural world were branded as witchcraft, while elsewhere Genoveseturns inward, examining feminine identity, inherited trauma, love, anger and the search for self-understanding. There is a rawness to the performances that feels deliberately unpolished, with Genoveseleaning further into her Northern identity and unmistakable Manchester accent rather than sanding away the character in her voice. Inspired by the character-led vocal performances of artists from Oasis and The Smiths to The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys, she has embraced the quirks of her own delivery and the distinctiveness of where she comes from – making Amulet feel unmistakably hers.

Amulet arrives at a moment of growing momentum for Freak Slug: following a run of festival appearances and performances at Pitchfork Paris and Pitchfork London in November, she will take the new album on the road this autumn for an 18-date North American headline tour, beginning in Vancouver on October 23 and culminating with an appearance at Corona Capital in Mexico City on November 22. Full tour dates listed below.