The Aquarium | The Aquarium | Dischord
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Listening to the debut from this Portland five-piece, I imagined them as a misfit girl gang: there’d be the goth one, the punk, the new waver, the metal chick, the tuff singer in a sparkly outfit. The music is ultimate rad, a mishmash of Benatar-dramatic vocals, makeshift proggery, and naif disco–plus it’s obvious they grew up seeing Sleater-Kinney shows on the regular. Vocalist Brisa Gonzalez has a clear, confident contralto and an occasionally theatrical delivery, but though her lyrics are of the personal-political sort, she’s subtle with the queer/feminist agenda. The title track, a genius exercise in what-the-fuckery, sounds like Excuse 17 covering Iron Maiden–riot-girl angst grafted to sea-chantey metal.
Shit and Shine | Jealous of Shit and Shine | Riot Season
Everyone knows that Dirtnap puts out the hottest shiz since shiz was invented, so I’m stating the obvious by propping their latest–but hey, it’s gotta be somebody’s living. Beat Beat Beat is a crew of pasty dudes who look like they never took off their Stiv Bators costumes after Halloween, but they play spit-tough street punk that’s fast and hateful enough to burn off the cliches.
Arthur Russell | Springfield | Audika
Baltimore is the new weirdo mecca, and Ponytail is one of the latest fruits of that scene. Hooky, athletic choogling is their game, and they play to win–lightning solos beget even faster lightning solos beget some shit that’d make Yes blush. And singer Molly Siegel makes the sort of noises often understood to mean, “Hi, I could really use some Meow Mix in my little bowl.” Fans of Deerhoof and Melt-Banana, take note.
