Esther Kohl Became The Monster So You Don’t Have To Wonder

Words by Matt Keenan

Somewhere in Brooklyn, a story started moving without her. Somebody said Esther Kohl broke into an apartment, which wasn’t true. It didn’t even need to be true, by the time it reached her she reacted like anyone would. It’s a wild thing to hear about yourself, that someone sees you not as a person but a force of destruction, or the villain. Esther Kohl became something too big to reason with, someone who gets through things.

Most people might try and mend the wound, or clear their name. Esther spent hers writing a song from the monster's point of view. 

Photo Credit: Matt Keenan

“Godziller” is a gritty, sardonic gut-punch that doesn’t argue with a rumor but rather moves into it. Between the distorted power chords, drums that hit like they’re trying to collapse a building, and a vocal performance that swings between deadpan and full throated release, Esther makes the best out of being the villain in someone else's story. The track forces you to wonder what being cast as the villain actually sounds like. 

What Esther cared about wasn’t that she “broke into an apartment”, it was about the fact that she was perceived as too much, too destructive to explain in any other way. It’s an old story but relevant one, what happens when a woman is perceived that way? Someone gets uncomfortable, and paints you as the villain in the nearest monster movie they can find.

Esther boldly and defiantly breaks the shell of being perceived as the monster, and decides to become one. She’d built one loud enough to flatten the metaphor and show that she is a force to be reckoned with. Her music embodies the very best of what confident female musicians have to offer, and she doesn’t offer an apology for being the monster, no tidy moral, or no scene where she shrinks back to the perceived version of herself she was in the rumor, just a woman-shaped kaiju walking through the wreckage of someone else's comfort zone and a song that refuses to tell you how to feel about her. 

That’s the best part of “Godziller,” and maybe of Esther’s whole run this year, from the hookup autopsy of “Wet Dream” to the reckoning of “Is It Worth It?” and now this: Esther keeps getting handed someone else's version of events and instead of correcting it, she moves in and redecorates confidently and bravely. Why waste your breath explaining you didn’t break into an apartment? If he wants a monster, he’ll get one. 

The city does not crumble and fall because the monster is evil, it falls because the walls were built too small for her in the first place. 

You can check out “Godziller” and the rest of Esther’s singles ahead of her forthcoming debut full-length LP wherever you get your music now.