Review Summary: Married to chaos.
What started as a girl band parody project inspired by Spinal Tap to be performed in an art school in Brighton ended up becoming the real version of the already classic jest. Two brits, Alice Go and Bella Podpadec, and an Icelandic force of nature known as Rakel Mjöll were behind the plot that would lead them to this whimsical twist of fate, an affair with the music industry that effortlessly dragged them to burn through the London live circuit and, to further extents, to a Canadian tour where they occurred as a hasty and deadly hurricane.
The joke was on them, but so were the songs and more importantly, so was the connection that the three furies had solidified through their thrilling years as performers since their inception in 2013. Some years passed, some singles dropped and a modest EP was published and here we are in 2018, having London Lucky Records hosting and channeling Dream Wife's venomous debut album, a collection of tracks that range from something that sounds like Bangles under opium to straight out pissed off punk ravings caused by shy lovers.
"I'm going to f*** you up, going to cut you up" screams a lovely Mjöll in the maelstrom that is the closer "F.U.U", as she spits her final words before the album ends in a destructive fashion of roaring white noise and flung instruments.
But let's rewind to get the full picture.
Not three seconds into the album and the band is already yelling their lungs out in unison with opener "Let's make out". There's no time to waste with warm-ups or hesitations, Dream Wife wants you right here, right now. This feeling of haste intensifies in the twisted psychopathy of "Act My Age", where the sweet girl that dreams in "Kids" becomes a playful succubus swinging on 90s riot grrrl vibes.
The chemistry between the ladies is perfectly obvious in tracks like "Taste" or in chorus-filled single "Fire", where the energy the band unmistakably has as a live act translates on record with ease thanks to the sharp and somehow nonchalant production where Go's guitar bites and rattles with restless vigor while Podpadec's bass glues it with the chaotic, and almost spoken singing tempo of Mjöll, slightly reminiscent of the master of unpredictability, Jimi Hendrix.
Dream Wife's debut definitely has an appeal, a dirty, nasty and intimidating way to infect you with impatient chants and substantially delicious grooves but that like marriage, what once was the sweetest fruit of the tree may very well turn to be the rotten memory of happier times.
