People, including myself, love to try and define what punk is supposed to be: “Punk is supposed to be honest!”, “Punk is supposed to be political!”. I’ve always felt like these assumptions have never come close to what it is really supposed to be. But Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes summed it up better than anyone I’ve ever seen before “Punk is not just a music genre that you play, but the conviction behind what you are saying.” and if there’s one thing this album has in spades, its conviction.
Listening to this album is the aural equivalent of inhaling a fuck ton of dirt at a festival: it’s scummy as hell, and not very pleasurable at some points, but it keeps coming back to you, over and over again. This is reflected in the production style, which grinds against the ears in the best way possible. If that wasn’t enough, Iggy ‘skin-so-leathery-I-swear-he’s-preserving-himself-for-a-future-generation‘ Pop actually features on the track La Uva, growling a low spanish vocal acting as the counter balance to Teri’s soft drawl. This track has some weird discordant piano tracks that just complete the strange punk odyssey this seems to be.
‘FUCK YOU OVER’ begins with a slow spoken word part that sounds like ‘The Nation Of Ulysses’ had a baby with one of Bob Dylan’s ‘Rainy Day Women’, before devolving into the simple but extremely bloody effective titular refrain.
The next tune that stands out is ‘Lonely and Drunk’ which shambles along with an irregular beat keeping time with while Teri screams in the hope that she can “kill the child in me”. This album concludes in a surprisingly traditional way, with a slow one. ‘My Half’ features John Frusciante doing a guitar solo but unfortunately it doesn’t really ever fully let go, just feeling content to be a filler riff. It’s odd that an album that goes ham so fucking liberally ends on such an ambling note, but it doesn’t corrupt what is otherwise a true punk album. Get yerself to Norwich please!
8.5/10
PLUM 