Violet Grohl – ‘Be Sweet To Me’ album review: Scuzz, fuzz, and suave songwriting
The debut album from Violet Grohl may be called Be Sweet to Me, but the 20-year-old’s acknowledgement of the audience ends here. Instead, Dave Grohl’s daughter has served up a punchy, fresh album dripping with insouciant cool-girl promise.
The Skinny: When Grohl announced her debut album earlier this year, she had already released a tribute song to visionary surrealist director David Lynch – the track is a key to the album at large, which just about scrapes the 30-minute mark, stuffed with swirling miniatures of teenage angst and desire, coupled with the overwhelming urge to hop a bus out of town and never look back.
The similarities between sinister provocations and Grohl’s misty mystery are evidenced in lead single ‘595’, a sultry, moody, and dark track inspired by a vintage T-shirt advertising a phone sex line. In the chorus, Violet sings seductively, “I’ll be your 1-900-G spot, baby, 595 I’m on the line, You won’t last.” The voice of Laura Palmer emerges from the void.
Like Lynch, Grohl builds her own diaristic world with the feeling that something bad is always around the corner. Call it female intuition, or growing up directly implicated in the tentacles of the media’s often unfavourable grand narratives, but the result is suave, sexy songwriting that serves no one but herself.
In an exclusive interview with Far Out, Grohl highlighted The Breeders’ second album, Last Splash, as a point of return throughout the recording process. With producer Kim Gordon and Charli XCX producer Justin Raisen on board, Grohl manages to religiously replicate some of that high-energy freneticism in offerings such as ‘Often Others’, where a heavy rock breakdown and drone-light scuzz showcases a talent beyond her years.
Still, Grohl manages to preserve a sense of youth and newness in the slower, meandering tracks, such as the haunting ‘Pool Of My Dreams’, or the Billie Eilish-tinged album closer, ‘Plastic Couch’, which ensures that the record feels, thankfully, less evidence of anything-can-sound-good-if-you-have-a-rich-dad and more Violet Grohl is Violet, first, and Grohl, second… Sonically, the sound snaps, pops, and crinkles throughout, Grohl’s testimony to the 1990s grunge era she so expertly pays tribute to.
Standout Track: ‘Cool Buzz’
The Verdict: On Be Sweet To Me, Violet Grohl proves to be a virtuoso storyteller with a promising ear for 1990s grunge, offering a messy, dizzying world in the coolest no-fucks attitude since Lyndsey Lohan’s mugshots – in a happy twist of fate, this debut is leaps and bounds better than Your Favorite Toy, the latest Foo Fighters album to hit the shelves. The kids are gonna be alright, after all.
Release Date: May 27th, 2026 | Producer: Justin Raisen | Label: Auroura Records via Republic Records
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