Perfect Pussy “Say Yes to Love” mdb
Shortly after Ian Mercer dedicated the Perfect Pussy EP i have lost all desire for feeling to me on KRLX, I saw singer Meredith Graves’ piece in Elle magazine, “On Tour with the Punk Rocker of Perfect Pussy.” What a nimrod I thought she’s a prissy baby not a punk rocker. To be fair, the article contains nothing really offensive. But the sheer existence of the article in a girly, ad-riddle rag like Elle struck me as NOT HARDCORE. Twenty seconds into the opening track “Driver”—I’m rethinking my stance on Graves. The long, tuneless drone intro, a machine clicking or something, suddenly bursts out into fast power chords and dissonant screeches. Graves spits gutturally over driving, simple guitar with a blissful noise drone floating at the top of the sound plane. Perfect Pussy is two parts – a strong hardcore backbone
and noisy outer shell. This Syracuse five-piece kicks it best when they are going hard and fast, sometimes reaching a Dinosaur Jr.-meetsSonic Youth-with-Lydia-Lunch sort of deja-vu. The screechy feedback feels new – a welcome update to arty hardcore. Weird, static-y outro “VII” is a whispery closer that ensures your eardrums do not get a rest after seven blistering tracks. This album is the perfect length: eight tracks and 23 minutes. Any longer and the façade would fall – or the listener’s ears would beg for mercy. This band is getting a lot of buzz, and not without reason. I hope they find a comfortable standing ground; it’s tough to please both the punk consumer and the audience Elle, Rolling Stone and MTV reach. A very excellent full-length debut, out now on Captured Tracks. Best Tracks: “Driver,” “Big Stars” RIYL: No Age, Hole, Slutever, Miley Cyrus
Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks David DeMark
Color. Energy. Excitement. Life. This was not what I was expecting going into this. I don’t think I’ve ever described myself as a fan of Animal Collective with a possible exception for one or two occasions where I’ve felt pressured into looking cool. I enjoyed Meriweather Post Pavilion like everyone else, and I haven’t disliked much that I’ve listened to by them, but for whatever reason (probably a lack of effort on my part) nothing I’ve been exposed to in their discography has pulled me that strongly in any particular direction. Enter the Slasher House, however, may well force me to reconsider this position. Ignoring the purple elephant in the room that is the context of Animal
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Collective, Avey Tare’s new project is a bolt of joy and a viscerally pleasing album to listen to. Between the nervously shifting rhythms, the lush, vibrant guitar sounds and the enthusiastically bright synth tones, the album comes off at first as an attempt to bottle a happiness on the verge of exploding. However, as the album goes on, a certain tension creeps out from under the instrumentation and delirium seeps into the songwriting structure and Tare’s voice. It’s this balance between uncertainty and exuberance that ultimately makes Enter the Slasher House so compelling. Tare paints a beautifully grinning picture of the Rome burning while he sits atop his tower and plays his fiddle. There are moments when it falls flat and some songs feel a bit insubstantial, but overall Enter The Slasher House is a highly enjoyable collection of sounds and feelings that whisks the listener away through Avey Tare’s demented looking glass
