WOMAN – Silver Wolf Dog (CD, Sea Records)
Posted: May 25th, 2007, by JGRAMI understand that Woman hate being compared to Deerhoof which is quite a useful emotional gesture as they are not as good as them. Fortunately Woman are a fantastic band in their own right and happen to touch many of the exact right buttons with yours truly. In many ways it reminds of a loud guitar and maxed out version of Frank Chickens, a recent personal discovery of a great lost band from the eighties.
Sequel to the equally fantastic Das Hexer (which was in many ways the perfect album with seven songs clocking in at eleven minutes), Silver Wolf Dog tears in similar manner, this time running at six songs in eleven minutes. With a bizarre disco-esqe guitar sound accompanied by a polarised Japanese vocal of repetitive strains, Woman strikes a blow for endeavour. Lyrics are generally incoherent and hidden as the vocals are delivered in a manual loop of lunacy to match the short sharp bursts of calamity rock the band unleash behind it.
The album opens with the bubbly guitar sound of humping wah, starting proceedings in the correct manner and by the time “Beat Kids” takes the reigns the sound is akin to some kind of warped nursery rhyme of roughness. “Margarine Tree” is where the true pounding bounce rules supreme, seeing the album at its most energetic. The record closes with “Fever”, the true epic/opus of Woman, a track that almost takes up half the capacity of the release.
Words fail as to how much I enjoy, treasure and adore bands like this, brief but not curt, energetic but not obnoxious, childish but not ridiculous – on a good day this is exactly the soundtrack to my life. By executing the “less is more” tactic with the length of the release, the strategy is most definitely a success as I find myself baying for more music from Woman.
Thesaurus: merriment.
JGRAM
JGram, friend of the stars, chartered accountant and pie enthusiast, likes nothing better than KICKING YOUR SKINNY ASS by way of a carefully-timed half-nelson followed by the CLOTHES LINE! OW! So never, never cross him. His dog Snowy is equally rockhard and will bite your lim bs off in the blink of an eye. And then paw your eyes out for blinking when he's biting you.