Review Summary: If Virago was able to create something more musically substantial this would be a great album. As it stands it is just a good one.
As one of the USA’s first openly transgender women to tour and perform nationally, Shawna Virago is a name that should perhaps be a little more recognised than it currently is. Having been performing since the early 1990’s, Virago is regarded as somewhat of a musical pioneer with her folk-punk style accentuating her story-based lyrics. As well as being a prolific musical artist she is also an accomplished filmmaker and published writer, with her work appearing in a number of books, anthologies and documentaries. Now with the release of
Heaven Sent Delinquent Virago has added to her already impressive body of work with another outing in the musical sphere.
Firstly, however, it should be noted that while an artist’s gender should (ideally) be irrelevant to the music they make, in the case of Shawna Virago it is so deeply rooted to her identity and lyrics that it is impossible not to mention. Almost all of the songs here make note of this, with stories and lyrics that Virago describes as
“the stories of my generation – a generation of transgender people who came out long before the internet, before transgender celebrities and reality TV stars… before anybody gave a shit about us.” She states that the lyrics tell the stories of her and her friends, which gives an indication as to how personal many of these songs are.
Take the title track for instance, which describes those unable to escape the towns in which they were born:
“The town was on the Hallelujah side / I would have stayed but I had too much pride. / Everyone stared at me with suspicion / As the girl who would never do / The missionary position / He said run, let’s run, come on run away.” Likewise “Burnout” describes a first queer sexual encounter, while opener “Bright Green Ideas” hilariously illustrates falling in love. However, it’s “Gender Armageddon” which serves as the anthem to Virago’s account of her and her friends banding together in a world that was particularly hostile to them.
“Last night I dreamed we stole a car / And smashed through the gates of heaven / The goddamn place was ready to blow / In a gender armageddon.”
By now it should be obvious that the actual music on the record is a distant second to everything else on display; while this is fairly unusual, Virago knows how to set a mood and stick with it and she also knows how to let her words do the talking. Each song follows a similar structure and progression: a few simply strummed guitar chords repeat multiple times while Virago narrates over the top of them, before leading to the chorus which lyrically functions as the core idea of the song. This process plays itself out again and again over the course of
Gender Armageddon’s ten tracks and while this certainly suits the style that Virago is seemingly going for it can get quite repetitive. And therein lies the biggest problem with the record: if the listener is unable to connect to the stories presented in the lyrics, there is little else to hold on to. And while it might feel wrong to criticise tales so personal and upfront, these stories are not for everyone. Virago’s lyricism is witty, direct, and occasionally shocking but the stories themselves are not always so easily relatable, leaving the album sometimes feeling bare.
If Virago was able to create something more musically substantial this would be a great album. As it stands it is just a good one. There is enough here to be excited about if you are a fan of folk-punk or take particular interest in the lyrics but for the most part
Gender Armageddon is just a solid record that tells a few interesting accounts of what life is like as a transgender woman and artist.
