Alma review, XOYO, London: Ushering in a new generation of pop music
Finnish pop star is joined by her twin sister for a short and sweet set of debut tracks
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Your support makes all the difference.An eerie voice precedes Alma's appearance onstage at XOYO, telling fans to expect her in 3... 2... 1...
The Finnish pop-punker strides onto the stage, her neon-yellow hair resplendent. Beside her is twin sister Anna-Livia, sporting a buzz cut dyed the same colour.
Alma has only four songs on Spotify but already boasts top 10 tracks around Europe; single "Chasing Highs" has been streamed more than 56 million times.
Why? Because she sings about the mistakes we make when we're young, and about refusing to regret them – about the feelings, however fleeting, we experience in our late teens and early twenties.
So the self-explanatory "Drunk Tattoos" precedes "Addicted", and she belts each song out like a pro, albeit with a refreshing slice of raw punk attitude.
Along with other young stars – Sigrid, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, SKOTT, Dagny – Alma is ushering in a new generation of fierce, female-led pop music.
Forgetting a verse during "Chasing Highs" she shrugs it off and laughs her way into the chorus, as her sister takes a swig from a bottle of rosé.
Alma's debut "Karma", which recalls Rag'n'Bone Man's retro-soul on "Wolves", includes the lyric: "I bring the karma to your game/You'd better run, run yeah/That bitch don't play." Well, quite.
Closing her set, she dives from the stage and, thanks to a willing, determined crowd, surfs all the way to the back of the room.
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Flushed and ecstatic at the reaction from this packed London room she is led backstage, hair still glowing in the dark.
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