Baabes – “Ratchet Ass Dance Party” (extended version)
Baabes is the kind of band that you make a note of not inviting to your next dinner party.
Baabes is the kind of band you like but are fearful of relaying this to anyone you’re dependent upon for your employment.
Baabes is like a dirty secret, an untold fetish, a crime you didn’t commit but wanted to. It’s like a desire, a thought a lifestyle- that you love as much as their music, but you don’t dare express it, keep it hidden inside.
Baabes is the sound that speaks of your desires that finally, makes you break free! From the chains that held you back, leading you into joy and freedom but also, some pain and uncertainty.
Baabes is the sound of wrecking balls smashing straight into your heart where your soul explodes and all remaining parts, somehow pull together and you’re left with your true, real, honest self.
Sounds pretty good to me. Sounds kinda great in fact. As this new release, actually, five songs tacked onto their last release, that kick major ass.
“Barbie Pink & Razor Sharp” bangs out with bristling, strummed guitar chords that could signal the coming of spring and rebirth or a tragic car crash with dismembered limbs and such. But then a hard groove enters the picture with bleating, emotive vocals that recalls T.Rex to me. This song is equal parts glam and punk rock. Think of it as Iggy fronting T.Rex, if you will, a wonderful thought indeed. This song is messy feelings, messy sounds that converge and splatter like blood might at a crime scene- but also, like emotions and desires thrusting forth in one gigantic, orgasmic, soul exploding glee. I feel this song rattles and bashes in a wild combustion or what you might feel being condensed inside a firecracker before it explodes.
“When You Want It” ignites like a time bomb with a rock solid beat, a vintage guitar lick and a vocal sounding like it’s being transmitted through a “walkie-talkie” from outer space or Japan. When the chorus breaks in, we’re treated to a landslide of energy and emotion that causes an excitement overload overdose. I think of this song as if the great, sixties garage band The Animals had become a punk band. When do I want it? Songs as great as this? Well, every breathing moment, I guess?
The first band that enticed me to music was The Beatles when I was eight years old. And this is a cover of an early tune by them, “Can’t Do That.” The Beatles were heavily influenced by American fifties rock’n’roll and early on, they were a great rock’n’roll band, too. I believe the true descendant of rock’n’roll is punk, not rock (which for the most part is lame). Baabes is an authentic rock’n’roll/garage/punk band, which they exemplify with this excellent, smashing version with a ferocious guitar solo and a rhythm section hitting your groin like a sledgehammer, though, trust me it feels and sounds so good!
“Don’t Front On Me” has a repetitive, revolving dirty ass guitar lick that snarls out at you like a rabid rottweiler. Or maybe like a whip, uncoiling, snapping at you from a dominatrix ready to show you the thin line between pleasure and pain. The vocals strike out at us too, with a snarl, a croon, a scream in this amalgam of garage/punk/rock’n’roll. This song is a tasty, trashy goulash of passion, excitement, wildness, energy and fun.
Baabes, though unwelcome at your next, fancy dinner party, full of gentlemen donning tuxedos and ladies with full, evening gowns- fully understands the link form fifties rock’n’roll and rockabilly to sixties garage rock to seventies glam and punk to the ongoing lo-fi indi and pulls this is all of, I think, magnificently.
If you listen closely you will hear traces of Little Richard, Link Wray, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Cramps, Gene Vincent, Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs, Iggy & The Stooges, The Mc5, The Kingsmen and The Flocks Of Seagulls.
Oh, strike that last reference. I’m in my cups about now, so to speak.
Their music is a dagger that strikes you straight in your heart causing ecstatic convulsions and pleasure. That hits you hard enough to hurt but leaves you wanting, begging for more.
‘Cause the passion, the fun, the wild joy of their songs should whip you into a frenzy, where you slip into hedonistic oblivion, at least, that’s what their music does to me.
Baabes is a great punk’n’roll garage rock band.
This is my review of the five songs that they tagged onto their excellent release from last year and, in my opinion, these are probably the best five songs on this release, meaning they just keep getting better and better.
This is my not as excellent attempt to replicate it.
But who can beat perfection?
(Slimedog)
