Alpha Males and Popular Girls
Label: Crucial Blast
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Alpha Males and Popular Girls
Everybody knows that girl, the one who’s the loudmouth in drama class, the black-clad bookworm who puts out, the one who’s not really “pretty” but is inescapably hot, the girl who can drink you and your friends under the table while intentionally saying just the wrong things to the redneck at the bar. Libby Schaub is that girl, and So I Had To Shoot Him is her band. Alpha Males is a brutal album brimming over with personality, mostly due to Schaub’s aggressive, dramatic voice; her vocal approach is both instantly feminine and punishingly hostile. That she’s fronting a skull-splitting math-metal crew capable of on-a-dime tempo changes, intricate arrangements and gut-rumbling riffs makes for something akin to Miranda Sex Garden colliding with Dillinger Escape Plan.
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2005.