Is hitting like a girl a such bad thing? It’s not for Motherfucker, the badass, all-female trio from Athens. Confetti starts with a punch and keeps on swinging. Their full-length follow-up to last year’s Tae Kwon Do EP is brash, loud and deeply menacing—the perfect soundtrack to a night of bad decisions.
Opening track “I’m Fucking Dick Dale” (a phrase defined by the band as “an exclamation of victory yelled while executing a 16th note guitar run correctly”) sets the tone of the album with dark, violent threats and a thundering rhythm section to back them up. Guitarist and frontwoman Erica Strout delivers lines such as “When I catch you, you won’t know what hit you” with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek—and possibly a weapon behind her back. Later, on the vicious “Good Time,” she makes good on her warnings: “Big blade gonna take your skin down / We’re going to see you inside out.” Much like a tornado, by the time you hear Motherfucker, it’s too late to take cover.
One of the album’s more accessible tracks, “Carl Sagan’s Ghost,” is an exercise in efficiency. Though it clocks in at a scant 2:13—the shortest on the album—it boasts more total headbangs than songs twice its length. Heavy, frantic guitar riffs pair with perfectly punctuated vocals that inquire as to the nature of the cosmos and feature a quote from the late astronomer himself. The music continues to swell before yielding to the simple refrain: “It’s science!” Just as it begins to boil over once more, the song ends abruptly but leaves the listener completely satisfied.
Motherfucker will draw inevitable comparisons to ’90s female-fronted alt-rock bands, especially the recently reunited L7, but their pedigree is more along the lines of Jesus Lizard or even Mclusky than, say, Hole. Fans of noise rock will revel in Mandy Branch’s thick, Shellac-esque bass, while Erika Rickson’s rapid pummeling of the drums often steals the show and provides wide crossover appeal to metal or hard rock listeners.
This blurring of genres is most evident on the title track, the brilliantly named “Confetti (In Your Fucking Face).” The song alternates between loud, sludgy punk and droning guitar reminiscent of stoner rock. It all devolves into a noisy breakdown that could have come straight from Chicago before returning seamlessly to a fuzzed-out guitar plucked directly from the California desert.
Whatever you do, don’t say Confetti is pretty good for girls. Not only would you be wrong, if the band has anything to say about it, you might even be dead wrong. It’s an album that takes no prisoners and needs no qualifiers. Motherfucker has a strong point of view and the playing chops to back it up—regardless of any bullshit gender designations.
More Info
Bandcamp: motherfuckermotherfucker.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @mfrocksyourfaceoff