Review - Girls of War

Behold, the Die Monitr Batss songwriting recipe: Combine a few wrangled, out-of-tune guitar chords, a dollop of gawkish sax blat and indifferently delivered boy-girl chants that could've been cribbed from a Henry Rollins diary. Stir. Repeat over the course of an album, adding minor (and ultimately inconsequential) stylistic variations. This Portland, Ore., quartet, a side project of The Gossip's Nathan Howdeshell, barrels through Girls of War on a wave of relentless post-punk monotony, wishing it were 20-some years earlier and they were opening for Suicide on the Lower East Side. Howdeshell and Lana On's lyrics are the most evocative aspect of their pose – "I broke the arm of a man I can't stand/He's at it again/Get in the van," "He's war-damaged/He doesn't know what he's doing," "It's all right if he dies/I'm so bored" and so forth – but the music numbs any shock value.