Piper Connolly is a 15-year-old alt-pop and pop-rock artist, born in Phoenix and now based in Los Angeles, and ‘bubblegum with razorblades’ is the focus track from her six-song EP she’s too much!, which arrives on 25 September alongside a music video shaped by her own creative direction. It follows a busy stretch for Connolly, with previous single ‘body bag’ picking up a Hollywood Independent Music Award nomination for Best Alternative Song, and on this evidence the attention is well placed.

At first listen it’s a neatly polished pop song, built on a fuzzy snare, synth-leaning keys and solid guitar chords, with Connolly’s voice sitting front and centre for most of its run. The surprise, however, is where the attitude lives, because while the chorus is catchy enough to follow you around for the rest of the day, the verses carry most of the bite and most of the hooks. That’s largely down to the writing, which feels bright and confident on the surface but keeps letting something sadder show through, most memorably in the line “I bite my tongue so hard it bleeds your name”, a neat summary of what it feels like to stay quiet while someone talks you down.

Around three quarters of the way through, the track climbs higher still and Connolly lands a strong, held note, but rather than crashing straight into a big final chorus, everything falls away to the chorus backed by a lone acoustic guitar for a few seconds, and that brief pause makes the release hit much harder when the full production comes back in.

If there’s one thing I’d change, it’s that the chorus vocals get slightly buried under the full weight of the production, which only matters because the lyrics are strong enough that you want to catch every word. It’s a small point though, and teenage me would have worn this one out. The rest of the EP is well worth your time too.

Sweet on top, sharp underneath, and very hard to shake.