the Ladies, “Six More Reasons to Hate the Ladies”

cover-ladiesThe Ladies
Six More Reasons to Hate the Ladies
(Grave Mistake)

There need to be more bands that sound like Apocalypse Hoboken or Quincy Punx. That adenoidal snotty piss-take on the vocals, sneering your way through songs that never break the three-minute mark? Check. Chords thrashed out, blasting through songs like a bull romping through a china shop? Check.

This record’s getting a lot of comparisons to the Dwarves, but I’m willing to wager that’s more due to the naked woman on the cover in what looks to be an Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS-style Nazi softcore fetish film. You combine shocking imagery and large-breasted naked women, and the Dwarves are bound to come up — the Ladies further augment the shock with “Dismemberabilia” fading out the end of the EP with some squeals and screams that could easily be thought to be those of the woman getting whipped with a riding crop on the back cover.

Grave Mistake continues their walk away from hardcore to the no less fast and angry world of underground garage punk. I’m glad that more labels and bands are embracing that early ’90s Sub Pop sound and just pummeling the shit out of some guitars at race-track speed, rather than engaging in tough guy braggadocio.

Granted, the Ladies are pretty tough themselves (any band willing to take on a girly name and put out a record in a pink sleeve isn’t exactly sissy). However, this is music that’s more drunk, crazy, thrashing about the room screaming the song titles as chorus and causing more damage to one’s self than starting shit.