This anthology of the Brazen hussies makes me think I should have seen them live back in the day at somewhere like Big Bob's Gone Strange or The Barfly in the Brazen Hussies 1996-2004 existence as a wonderfully messy and messed up indie glam punk band. This anthology is the cd version the vinyl that comes out next year has a different running order and some songs not on the cd. The band were Dave Queen on vocals and guitar, Lou Psyche on Vocals and Guitar, Lunch on Bass and Russell Curtis on drums.
The cd opens with Touch It that sounds like a thrash loving version of Suede strained through the lens of the Strangulated Beat Offs.
Superisolate has some very junk shop glam vocals in The Rats meets David Kubinec but with some really odd stuff going on with the guitars as they sound well out of it.
Fleur is the first song featuring Lou Pysche on lead vocals and it sounds like a slightly less deranged Cay, but with a different set of problems as she fails to be able to wash the salt from her eyes.
Ballad Of Sexual Violence is a song title that feels very right for the 2020's as the subject is all over the media these days and this is a fraught low-fi scream into the void of the kind of Sexual Violence that's outside the S & M kind, this is fighting over everything.
Looked Into Your Eyes has a raw Electric Eels style guitar freakery backing, as this tale of the void you see in that persons eyes unfolds and the guitars come more into focus.
Thin Lips is a cry of drug ravaged angst and what you'll do to get what you need, with the guitars freaking out and drummer Russell Curtis who sounds like he can only just about sit upright on his drum stool as it all threatens to collapse around them.
Salt Leak is off kilter and atonal in the way things become when you try to explain yourself at the end of a week-long bender, but can't remember what happened an hour ago.
Scrape has an urgency like you need to have a Scrape to prove you didn't give someone the clap, the guitars really go off like incendiaries set against dentist drill sounds and plenty of clatter.
Wet Shelter has a low-fi scuzzy indie shamble to it, with glammy intentions never quite making it out of the gutter to get dressed up.
The Whole World Envies Us is the sort of title you come up with after binging on too much speed and other drugs and then come up with a totally deluded sounding song that freaks out in all sorts of ways.
Internal Repression Trade is the sort of song that would make you consider selling yourself into sexual slavery just so you wouldn't feel so repressed anymore with the guitars having orgasms in between verses.
Heavy Electricity starts off like it's going to be a lighter in the air sensitive ballad, but slower and has too many odd noises going on for that, as Dave Queen's bruised and pained vocals explain just how Heavy Electricity just about gives him enough reason not to end it all.
Pop Song is thankfully nothing like a trad Pop Song being more of a stripped indie metal song built around a guitar that wants to wail and wail as the vocals declaim a good bit.
Forgot More Than I Ever Knew is an acoustic song that being stripped back somehow sounds a bit like a Big Star demo for a long-lost power pop song until the electric guitar squalls come in that is.
Kimberley is not a Patti Smith cover but could easily be a song of lust for Kimberley Rew with the acoustic guitar and electric guitar distortions making this actually have an air of a Leonard Cohen song being re-imagined in the gutters of 90's Kings Cross.
You Are My Brother has a demo feel to it, like the guitar parts are being made up to go round what Lou is singing about what that brother got up too.
Crawfish is not the Elvis song, but the most sophisticated sounding song on the anthology, it sounds much more produced and has the guitar dialed back with some strings coming through instead with some cool ethereal backing vocals before it changes up and gets a good bit heavier in the middle.
Vittima Colpavole is like a horror movie hellscape soundtrack with a motorik beat and squalling weird noises that move around the room all over the place.
Sleep It Off is the sound of experience of getting to that point of a binge where the only thing you should do is go and sleep it off and not carry-on drinking drugging and being a fiend.
Fee Bee is a 7 minute plus bass opus with bedroom noises coming out of the walls at you as that bass becomes ever more Kyuss like, until the funky disco backing vocals come in, before it goes back to the bass heavy stoner rock and leads into some cartoon soundtrack stuff, this is a totally mental tune.
Decathexis is a piano led song that almost sounds a bit Ben Folds Five, but with bags more integrity and grit and an eye on how you crawl into the gutter rather than out of it.
The first cover on the cd is a very cool raggedy as they come take on the Sky Saxon classic Can't Seem To Make You Mine that gives the impression you've been rejected for being all over the place and unable to string together two sentences while trying to chat up the object of your desire, the backing is like Flies On Sherbet era Alex Chilton totally rock and roll while falling apart at the seams.
The second cover on the cd is a brilliant re-imagining of The Modern Lovers classic I'm Straight being played by a bunch of Hippy Johnnies who are always stoned, apparently recorded for a Johnathon Richman tribute album that never happened it still sounds like it would have fitted In perfectly on You Can Talk To The Dude the tribute album I own. I love the spoken word bits of this, a totally brilliant cover of a classic song that adds to the original and is a far more interesting take on the song than the version by Boyracer.
The cd closes with Dave Queen doing a solo cover of the Beach boys All Summer Long and playing it surprisingly straight, it sounds really quite pretty compared to the rest of the cd.
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