Labels: Tiny Engines
Review by: Sean Haughton
i’ve been aware of these guys for a while, and spend a large amount of my time in the city 2/3rds of the band now reside in, but somehow their apparently tour-de-force live set has managed to evade me and it’s taken me this long to sit down and listen this LP properly. hopefully i’ll catch them soon, because this record is righteous.
mannequin pussy stretch out their styles pretty far on this LP, but do it well enough for it to work and still make it cohesive. at points i get really reminded of the inimitable cheeky (god rest their soul) or the lawless nature of the amps album. it balances that mix of catchy mid-paced pop and straight fuck-right-off-attitude rowdiness. you’ll get a song like ‘clue juice’ which is all instruments-out-the-window punk and yells of “IF THAT’S THE WAY YOU WANT IT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS” next to a sighed power ballad and it doesn’t feel weird. this band sound very “cool”, but not like a manufactured try-on cool, like they are just really fucking cool and you’d be nervous about approaching them in case they give you a wedgie and shove you out the door. mannequin pussy give the impression they came to kick ass and chew bubblegum and this album sounds like they ran out of bubblegum.