Review Summary: I'm on a psycho holiday
From their backstory to their music, everything concerning The Bobby Lees is about getting straight to the point; no bullshit, no frills, no questions. Formed in 2018, the New York quartet have been blasting their way through the modern garage rock scene with a distinctly raw, ramshackled sound, earning them touring slots with punk and alternative legends such as Helmet and The Black Lips. But their unhinged nature is also what brings out the most interesting facets of their sound, especially in regards to frontwoman Sam Quartin: rapid-fire rambling, brash shouting, that little high-pitched squeak Jack White loved to do in The White Stripes… she does it all, and her charisma is
crucial to The Bobby Lees’ musical identity. Of course, that’s not to take anything away from the other band members, a fact only reinforced by the group’s newest offering
Bellevue.
As you might guess, this baby wastes no time getting started; hell, the opening title track is a complete barnburner. The drumming blazes by at the pace of a hardcore punk song, as the unpolished guitar tones and jagged riffs of Quartin and Nick Casa provide a perfect backing to the former’s wild vocal inflections; all the while, what really impresses me is the fact that the rhythm section is still able to hold the craziness together. Bassist Kendall Wind and drummer Macky Bowman prove to be an incredibly adept duo on
Bellevue, something that becomes even more apparent with later tracks such as the supercharged rock n’ roll of “Ma Likes to Drink” and the creepy subdued swing of “Strange Days”. Whatever variations The Bobby Lees attempt to add to their core sound, they - and the band as a whole really - manage to be more capable of musical diversity than most of their current contemporaries. Still, no matter how far down this rabbithole they go, they
never lose that punk-fueled fire in the process; “Dig Your Hips”, for instance, experiments with more sophisticated guitar/bass harmonies and melodic leads while still being grounded in the band’s familiar brand of piss-and-vinegar aggression.
However, things get especially interesting near the back-end of the record; perhaps in the spirit of being subversive and unpredictable, we get a few songs that reside outside of the group’s normal wheelhouse. The quirky jazz-inflected rhythms of “Time Table” and the straight-up surf-punk of “Mystery Theme Song” are particularly notable, the former playing with the soft-verse-loud-chorus dynamic while the latter sounds like it came straight out of an old
Scooby-Doo episode. It’d be nice to hear more of this kind of stuff on their next outing, but it’s a fun little surprise for those who stick with the album long enough. It’s also worth noting that much of Quartin’s lyrical content comes from personal experience, as her history of alcohol-induced schizophrenia is the inspiration for a lot of the band’s subject matter; needless to say, her vocals are a
perfect fit for the crazy off-kilter - even somewhat deranged - lyrics on offer in
Bellevue. And really, that kind of kinetic energy is what makes this experience so damn fun; The Bobby Lees give no fucks - the Greta Van Fleet diss track “Greta Van Fake” indicates as much - and are willing to take their garage-punk sound into whatever twisted direction they like.
Bellevue may not reinvent the wheel for punk or garage rock, but both genres would certainly be less exciting places without albums like this.
