Coward
Label: Neurot
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Coward
Matthew Egan lavishes forceful attention on his snares and cymbals, bashing a deliberate, crashing, tinny trail. The bass guitar of Cooper (just Cooper) ‘ which must be strung with thick steel cables ‘ groans out ratchet-twist notes in ascending and descending scale strings. Guitarist Brendan Tobin is a jack-of-all-trades, laying down slow-burn calamari leads, fussy accents and quivering-finger slide action with equal aplomb. Even without singer Julie Christmas on board, this tremendous threesome would be a force to be reckoned with. With her, though, Made out of Babies is a veritable hard-rock force of nature. Her strident battle cry kicks off opening track ‘Silverback,â?� a visceral taste of what’s to come later on Coward. ‘Out,â?� for example, finds Christmas characteristically chameleonic ‘ loosing a bloodcurdling scream during the intro, stretching her throat-straining vocals over the angrily thrashing instrumental mass like victims rigged to a rack, and quietly, tightly, precisely feeding out the chorus, only to yell its final word.
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2006.