If Cool Story, Bro was Lauren Ash sharpening her eyeliner and casually eviscerating her ex over a grunge-pop riff, then Dumpster Fire is her fully ascending into chaotic neutral, wielding a flamethrower made of glitter and bad decisions.
This is her tenth single in two years, which is either a testament to her work ethic or a slow unraveling we’ve all been blessed to witness in real time. And honestly? Both are valid. Dumpster Fire doesn’t ease you in. It launches out of the speakers like it was summoned by the ghost of a Warped Tour crowd and the collective anxiety of your group chat. From the first distorted chord, it’s clear: subtlety has left the building, and it’s on fire.
Lyrically, Lauren Ash remains unmatched in her ability to weaponize the personal. The verses are equal parts therapy session and TikTok spiral, managing to sound like a breakdown and a breakthrough at the same time. These are the thoughts you have at 3AM, but with a killer bridge. She’s not coping; she’s curating the chaos, turning every bad decision into a lyric you’ll scream in your car.
And that chorus? It doesn’t drop. Rather, it detaches and reenters orbit. It’s huge, it’s unhinged, and it lands somewhere between a protest chant and a karaoke meltdown. Think If My Chemical Romance had a sense of humor meets Charli XCX in a mood.
The production is gloriously jagged: pop-punk guitars stumble into overblown synths, the drums hit like someone trying to hold it together during a family dinner, and the whole thing feels like it’s about to collapse under its own emotional weight, and then doesn’t. Somehow, Lauren Ash makes disaster feel like catharsis. It’s like being handed a sparkler in the middle of a flood and deciding, “Yeah, actually, this rules.”
If Cool Story, Bro was the start of the heel turn, Dumpster Fire by Lauren Ash is the full supervillain origin arc, complete with a soundtrack. It doesn’t just light a match under the idea of composure. It burns down the whole emotional infrastructure and throws a block party on the ruins.
Song of the Summer? Don’t be ridiculous. This is summer, in song form: sweaty, volatile, probably dehydrated, and screaming into the sunset with a smile.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
