QUITS, MOON PUSSY, CHERRY SPIT: 'ONE OR SEVERAL WOLVES'
'Above all else they appeared wholly at venture, primal, provisional, devoid of order…’
--Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
***
'A swarming, a wolfing...'
--Deleuze/Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
And, yes, that's how these bands come at you out of the speakers and amps: a swarming, a wolfing, one or several.
Considered reductively by genre, say, Noise Rock, these three bands, Quits, Moon Pussy and Cherry Spit, have a fair amount in common. They're loud (Very!). Their songs stop, stutter, start again, stop again. Though occasionally modulated, the vocals are most often hoarse, raw, clamorous. Even when only one individual is singing it still sounds like the three heads of Cerberus: Howling.
Quits and Cherry Spit employ a pair of guitars each. Moon Pussy has one guitar. All of them keep busy setting your hair on fire.
The rhythm sections are basic, even skeletal: Bass. Drum. Clatter.
And though the bands might share similar strategies, their tactics are their own.
In Quits, Luke and Doug pit guitars and vocals against each other and against themselves. Luke in particular has honed his voice to a singular pitch, anguished and angry -- the sound of another door being torn off a Boeing jet -- only this time, you're strapped to it.
How Moon Pussy's Ethan gets all that noise out of one guitar is astonishing. That he can be heard over Cristina's singing, even more so. Though all three of these bands mix up their rhythms and textures, Moon Pussy are the masters of constructing dense, intricate mazes of noise and melody -- songs of the Trickster slyly stealing your food, your tv, your beer -- your girl, your boy. Nothing left but a smile and a wink.
Cherry Spit are the newest of these bands but individually they've all been around for awhile. What's most immediately impressive with Cherry Spit is the absolute whirlwind of sound generated by the guitar work of Ricardo and Jackson. Now one, now the other rises out of the maelstrom with a riff, a lead, a set of chords that can't be topped until the other abruptly breaks through the din and grabs you by the neck and shakes you like you're trying to ride out an Oklahoma tornado in a cardboard box. Cyrena's vocals are a taunt, bloodied, unbowed, unforgiving. No quarter asked. None given.
***
All three of these bands are, right now, based in Denver. They play a lot and occasionaly share the same stages. Keep an eye on their Instagram feeds and you'll know what they're up to. You've been warned.
Quits:
Bandcamp:
Insta: @quitsband
Cherry Spit:
Bandcamp:
Insta: @_cherryspit
:::SIGNAL:::NOISE:::SIGNAL:::NOISE:::
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