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The
Vivian Girls,
a female trio from New York (Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy and Ali Koehler),
delivered
catchy and sprightly, albeit sloppy and noisy, garage-rock
on the mini-album Vivian Girls (In The Red, 2008).
The singles Wild Eyes and especially Tell the World
bridged the
Velvet Underground
and
Jesus And Mary Chain.
The vocal harmonies of
Such A Joke
evoke the 1960s of folk-rock and bubblegum-pop except that drums and guitars lay down a thick layer of uncontrolled noise.
Gloriously hummable melodies fortify
the cow-punk verve of All The Time and the pounding fatalism of
Wild Eyes.
The galloping and anthemic Going Insane exudes punk ethos.
No, whose only word is "no", is pure frenzy and rage, the ultimate
female rock anthem.
The other philosophical mantra of the album is I Believe In Nothing,
another breathless ride through female teenage anxiety.
The detached vocals of Cassie Ramone are a treat in themselves.
Several of the songs
Everything Goes Wrong (2009) didn't kick and punch with the same
cold, surgical strength of the debut, but then maybe that was not the goal.
One visible drawback is that the singer tries to actually sing the songs,
whereas she used to barely modulate her voice.
Hence Walking Alone At Night, Double Vision and Survival
may have better melodies than previous
songs, but don't quite shake the ground (and the world) the same way.
Nonetheless there are plenty of cute moments: the way the singalong of
When I'm Gone wraps itself around the square-dance drums is effective;
and the Stooges-ian rock'n'roll of Can't Get Over You is such an
unlikely scaffolding for the song's romantic elegy that one can forgive that
it lasts one minute too long; and
the tender while outrageous rigmarole You're My Guy would have been
a punk-rock hit in the age of Frightwig.
The undeterred teenage frenzy of I Have No Fun and
The Desert gets closer to repeating the exploit of the first mini-album.
Even better is I'm Not Asleep, that weds that effervescent irreverence
with Chinese-opera vocals.
The End, however, could be opening a new career, given how naturally
it weds Gun Club's ominous cow-punk and
the Mamas & Papas' ecstatic harmonies.
Out For The Sun, another Gun Club-influenced, is an existential dirge that rides towards the horizon on a furious rock'n'roll rhythm.
The fact that so many songs last three or four minutes might have something to
do with the greatly reduced emotional impact: sometimes less is more.
Despite the shortcomings, this is still a formidable burst of teenage angst.
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