Review Summary: "What the f*ck are you?"
I should probably put away the rose colored glasses before my next Bandcamp-scavenging endeavor. I love supporting independent artists, to the extent that I, perhaps, grade their output on a curve sometimes. In my defense, my recent finds (Vagabon's
Sorry I Haven't Called and The Belair Lip Bombs'
Lush Life) gave me reason to believe that Bandcamp's homepage was awash with nothing but hidden gems. I pick one at random and start jamming. Sadly, that didn't happen this time. I settled on all-female garage punk band Cat Valley and sadly don't think I'll be returning to them.
Their new six-track EP
Bingo Queen deals with a range of topics in its twenty-three minute span; self-love, being a black sheep to your parents, the overturning of Roe v Wade and so on. Perhaps this is just their vibe and their format and I don't know what's what, but the passages they put to paper are almost hilariously hackneyed and arid. "My Body", by its giveaway title, is the obvious response to Roe's dismantling and is performed with wholly justified, if largely unlistenable, call-and-response screams from the band's three vocalists. This amounts to the equivalent of a demonstration in the public square and possesses the tonality and fervor of whining teenagers. Don't get it twisted; Republican lawmakers and Catholic Church kiddie-touchers can tell me what they have to say about abortion as soon as they experience their first labor pains, but this protest track lacks any cleverness, wit or chasmic thought.
In a similar vein, the ultra bitter and jaded "Imposter", which on its own takes up a quarter of the project's runtime, is about failing to live up to a father's expectations. The distorted guitars on its opening section are interesting enough, but this one also contains lyrical depth that would make Simple "Perfectly Perfect" Plan look like Tony-winning playwrights by comparison; "I'm a f*ck up and a disappointment," the first verse goes. Being succinct is one thing. A blitz of vacant brays into the void and half-baked ideas are another. This is the latter. The opening title track meanwhile vies for status as the most annoying song of the entire year; "I wanna scream." Yeah, me too.
Some of Whitney Flinn's riffs have a decent level of groove and kick to them, but the overall production is mired with a litany of holes to plug up; tepid and lifeless drum fills, unorthodox vocals and cartoonishly surface-level lyrics. I could maybe appreciate the rudimentary presentation if there wasn't so little here to enjoy. It's not to say I disagree with this band's politics, because I fully echo their sentiments. But I think they'd be better suited screaming "My body, my choice" to a bunch of crotchety congressmen who need another glass of Metamucil and not this random bloke who loiters around Bandcamp at 2:00 in the morning.
