If you saw one of the 100-plus shows that Model/Actriz played in 2023, what you were probably most struck by was the Brooklyn noise band’s intensity. Every night felt somewhere between a secret initiation and a car crash, with lead singer Cole Haden at the center of the madness. “It’s not a show unless we’re all drenched in sweat,” says Haden, 28.
Those shows were never less than exhilarating for the audience, but by last year, the band was starting to feel exhausted. “Playing shows every day fried the reward center of my brain,” says drummer Ruben Radlauer, 29. “I didn’t know how to make the shows feel good anymore unless it was constantly leveling up. And usually the only way is just to play harder.”
Guitarist Jack Wetmore, 29, winces as he remembers one European tour where he played so hard that he ended up injuring himself onstage. “I had gotten into a habit of throwing equipment,” Wetmore says. “And then that shit hurt me back.” Bass player Aaron Shapiro, 30, smiles thinly: “I don’t think I’ve ever felt less sympathy for a person in pain than a man who threw a guitar at himself.”
Model/Actriz can laugh about that era of the band now, because they’re about to vault past it. Their second album, Pirouette, out April 25 via True Panther, is a stunning sequel to their rave-reviewed debut, Dogsbody. If Haden’s lifelong love of pop stars like Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue was something the last album hinted at, it’s front-page news on this one. Radlauer calls Pirouette “a dance-pop album,” and while you won’t confuse it with anything on the Top 40, there’s a new energy that’s irresistible.
“Before, it’s been very claustrophobic and kind of gnarly all the time, and scared to show emotion sometimes,” Wetmore says. “This one feels like we took big leaps of faith into trying to be as open as possible.”
On lead single “Cinderella,” Haden recounts how he dreamed of having a Cinderella-themed birthday party in elementary school, only to change his mind out of fear. “That’s my experience as a gay youth,” he says. “I remember wanting to wear the dress, and I was imagining entering the party. And then I remember thinking about what other people would think of me.”
In the music video, he gets his moment at the ball after all, starring as Cinderella in a surreal storyline that climaxes at an underground club. Radlauer, Wetmore, and Shapiro play Cinderella’s mean step-family. “It’s the first time I’m doing choreo on camera,” Haden says. “It really is a diva moment for me.”
More seriously, he sees “Cinderella” as reflecting the personal growth he’s done as an adult. “Despite all of that pain, I still made it through to the other side,” he adds. “And I don’t have to defend myself like I did. I can let the shield down.”
Some of Pirouette‘s most thrilling peaks come when Haden lets us listen in on his inner monologue before a show on “Vespers” (“I’m asking, are you her? Are you free/To be a bitch, but graciously?”) and fully embraces his power as a charismatic performer on “Diva” (“Yeah, you could call me a small-business owner/Living in America, while trapped in the body of an operatic diva”).
The latter song’s lyrics came to him spontaneously: “I had one verse written and then I was like, ‘I think this song will be better if I have a glass of wine and just do it in the booth,’” Haden recalls. “It was just to amuse myself and let it not be overwrought — which is something that I would not have been able to do on the first album.”
That playful quality in his words mirrors the band’s newly flexible studio philosophy. Recording over a few weeks in Rhode Island last fall, they found that their sound has room for an acoustic ballad (“Acid Rain”) and a spoken-word ambient interlude (“Headlights”) along with plenty of sleek twists on the industrial clangor they’re known for.
“A lot of it was asking ourselves, what is the point of all of this, honestly?” Wetmore says. “I mean, the world was falling to shit in so many different ways, and we’re out here trying to write fucking songs. We had to rediscover what the point is.”
They found a surprisingly liberating answer in letting go of any expectation of how a Model/Actriz album should sound. “We were so stressed out making the last one, and worried that it wouldn’t represent us,” Radlauer says. “All we can do now is have fun with whoever we are at the moment.”
