Alysha puts her faith inside goth and new wave on ‘Take It or Leave It,’ before supporting LANY across Japan and South Korea
Perhaps alternative audiences aren’t uninterested in songs about faith. Perhaps nobody has been speaking to them in their language. On ‘Take It or Leave It’, Alysha takes spirituality out of its expected musical surroundings and drops it into a nocturnal world of goth, new wave and dark electronics. The result feels less like an attempt to reconcile opposing worlds than a refusal to accept that they needed separating in the first place.
“I wanted to write a Goth/Electronic song about my faith which alternative people can also enjoy rather than the usual Gospel, R&B or Country you get with Christianity,” Alysha explains.
It’s a deceptively simple ambition, but one that fundamentally changes the atmosphere around the subject. Shadowy synths and electronic textures replace the sonic language typically associated with contemporary Christian music. Faith remains at the centre; only its clothes have changed.
Even the song’s reference to 666 plays with that disconnect. Alysha uses one of Christianity’s most culturally loaded symbols as a point of curiosity, understanding that provocation can sometimes open a conversation more effectively than reassurance. The darkness surrounding ‘Take It or Leave It’ isn’t necessarily opposed to its spirituality; it makes listeners reconsider what spiritual music is supposed to look and sound like.
That approach feels particularly natural for an artist whose influences have never occupied one neat category. Raised in St John’s Wood with Cuban-Indian heritage, Alysha grew up absorbing everything from Beyoncé, Lauryn Hill and Joss Stone to Siouxsie & The Banshees and church gospel. ‘Take It or Leave It’ sounds like those seemingly distant reference points beginning to exist more comfortably beside one another.
Co-producing the track with Matt Rist also gives Alysha greater ownership over that evolution. Rather than simply adopting goth and new-wave aesthetics, she uses their tension, darkness and theatricality to create a setting in which questions of faith, temptation and personal boundaries can feel more complicated.
That willingness to complicate her identity arrives at an important moment. Alysha has already accumulated more than three million Spotify streams, while ‘Finer Things’ generated over two million Instagram Reel views. In October, she’ll make another considerable leap, supporting LANY across three stadium dates in Japan and another in South Korea.
There would be an obvious temptation, with audiences expanding, to make the music increasingly straightforward. ‘Take It or Leave It’ suggests Alysha is heading in the opposite direction. Its real rebellion isn’t putting God and gothic electronics in the same song. It’s questioning why anybody decided they belonged in separate worlds to begin with.
As Alysha enters her biggest live chapter yet, ‘Take It or Leave It’ feels like an artist becoming less concerned with fitting neatly into existing categories, musical, spiritual or otherwise. The title offers listeners the choice. Alysha herself sounds increasingly uninterested in asking permission.
Watch ‘Take It or Leave It’
