MANNEQUIN PUSSY
Grabbed by the collar and wrestled into submission, the opening ‘I Got Heaven’ is a swift sonic slap to the chops. Commanding from the outset, the anger-fuelled vocals of Marisa "Missy" Dabice are a no-holds-barred torrent of defiance in the face of disaster. Its bulging muscular basslines pump and flex as the surging Dabice is mildly tempered with a harmonic chorus, yet all the while the veins of this track pulsate with energy and unbridled fierceness.
A hopscotch of bass and guitar on ‘Loud Bark’ lurches from relative periods of calm into climatic moments of impassioned pleas. The characteristic vocals Dabice never fail to deliver and shake some sense into any apathetic listener.
The tender (by Mannequin Pussy) standards, ‘Nothing Like’ tips the hat to 90’s indie rock. As Dabrice declares that “sometimes I want you”, demonstrating a high level of restraint. Showing a softness both vocally and emotionally, it tempers some of the preceding rage.
One of the most beautiful and skillful tracks off the entire album ‘I Don’t Know You’ opens with a haunting cinematic score. A heartfelt and honest piece lamenting lost opportunities about an inability to share and say something simple. The electronic loop that permeates throughout the entire track is overlaid with a deft amount of fuzzy guitar, adding just the right level of garage punk to a delicate topic.
An upbeat and optimistic ‘Sometimes’ with its elastic bass and bright guitar fits harmoniously with Dabice vocals. Hinting at the possible range of her delivery, the track wavers between the gentle and the hoarse but settles upon neither. As if a false sense of security had been established ‘OK? OK! OK? OK!’ leaps into Atari Teenage Riot territory with limbs flailing and a blind thrust into unknown. Just as schizophrenically, ‘Tell Me Softly’ flips back to the traditional verse, chorus, verse but that isn’t to say it is absent of the guttural Dabice yelps we have become accustomed to.
Three chords and the truth. ‘Of Her’ is young blood and firepower. Brief in length before the high-energy track blows itself apart. Merging seamlessly into ‘Aching’, the track takes those exploded parts, reassembles them into pure punk, and spits them out in characteristic fashion. With its simple rhythmic guitar and soft approach ‘Split Me Open’ is a hypnotic piece. Never too sure if at any moment it may change course and veer off into chaos, it holds itself together with quiet dignity to round off the album.
