Green Lady Killers: Danger and Deliciousness

"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see us?"

Let’s hear it for blood ‘n guts ‘n beauty ‘n brains ‘n beer ‘n bangs! There’s nothing like the sight, sound and (dare we say it) smell of rock chicks dressed in form-fitting black in 100-degree heat to get sweat pouring and hormones racing, not necessarily in that order.  The Green Lady Killers, a female punk/psychobilly power trio from the sun-baked environs of Phoenix, come on like the stars of a high-def camcorder update of “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” Their mix of Runaways attitude, Cramps horror-Goth fashion ethos and metallic punk riffs equal three chords and a cloud of tail pipe exhaust. Singer/guitarist Lady Van Buren is a hellacious frontwoman, with fire-breathing, no-nonsense vocals and more than a touch of menace behind that dark eye shadow, combined with some gut-punching garage rock riffage. Bassist/vocalist Annie Venom ably sports an “I Love Zombies” sticker on her axe that suggests she’d probably bring an Uzi to a knife fight; and drummer Cherrybomb manages a propulsive backbeat while wearing stiletto leopard skin heels, no mean trick.

The Green Lady Killers debuted with a self-titled EP in 2007 that included their calling card, "Psycho Ellen," a frenzied rocker in the finest crazy-bitch-from-hell tradition (“something’s wrong with her brain”) featuring a short but satisfyingly spastic and yes, psycho, guitar solo. That was followed in 2009 with their debut album, “Just Fine,” also released on the Rusty Knuckles label. They offer plenty of three-minute blasts of loud, fast, dangerous, sexy fun and games. “Snake Eyes” features a slinky and cool come-hither growl, backed with churning guitars and power riffs. “Whips Chains” is a leather come-on that asserts “you need it more than you know.” “Dance Floor” combines GLK’s signature sounds with catchy pop elements in a dialed-down fashion that demonstrates the ability to avoid pigeonholing (okay, maybe more like raven-holing in their case).

The video for “My .45” is a slick-yet-dusty showcase for GLK’s talents. The no-nonsense playing and dangerous goings-on deliver the oh-so-tender message “don’t mess with us or you’ll wind up dead in the desert.” Speaking of forty-fives, the gals in Green Lady Killers seem to have a real fascination with weaponry, posing with various gats and guns in their publicity photos. Maybe they’re just looking for men with real…um…firepower. Either way, we wouldn’t suggest challenging them to any duels. Not with a group whose DNA samples probably spell out “Take No Prisoners.”

PJ Harvey - Shake it Up, England, Twist and Shoot

A girl and her zither

Hell yes, war is hell. Polly Jean Harvey knows it, and has produced a bitter bone that Great Britain’s military bulldog might just choke out, mushy dentures and all. PJ Harvey’s new album, “Let England Shake,” is a mournful, haunting song cycle about the futility of war that’s downright startling in its emotional resonance and hypnotic in its high-end tune-age. Like a Londoner reading the Daily Telegraph’s weather page, the songs battle against dreary, spirit-crushing conditions in hopes of achieving a meaningful life, or a couple pints down at the pub, whichever comes first. 

Referencing any number of English military campaigns but maintaining a very World War I in-the-trenches feel, the album’s war poetry always circles back to a central theme: the wasteful sacrifice of young lives and its effect on a nation with an upper lip stiffer than schoolboys ogling Page Three girls. If titles like “The Words that Maketh Murder,” “The Last Living Rose” and “The Bitter Branches” don’t paint a mental picture, lyrics like “arms and legs were in the trees” and “death was everywhere” bring the blood, despair, mud and grime home, most likely in a body bag.

But by no means is “Let England Shake” a soundtrack for some thrash-metal video game kill factory. It’s an acoustic-based collection of memorable, subtle and oddly-inspiring-in-a-melancholy-way mood pieces that stick in your gut like yesterday’s eel pie. Harvey is in amazing voice throughout, whether she’s making like a cabaret pop chanteuse on the title track/first single, combing briny sea shanty and speaking-in-tongues babbling (“England”) or residing in a folk ballad echo chamber (“On Battleship Hill”). Harvey is backed by strummed acoustic guitars and muted horns, accenting by the occasional vibraphone, reserved electric guitar distortion or, in the case of “The Glorious Land,” a bugle charge. Tally-ho and let’s take one in the forehead for the Queen!

If there was any justice in the world and true artistry was rewarded (no, “Glee” doesn’t count), Ms. Harvey would be the biggest British export since low-cost pharmaceuticals. But at least we can say this: Polly Jean, you’ve done it again. 

Saint Motel: Concierge is King

Four guys with mustaches walk into a bar...

To paraphrase the late Frank Zappa, progressive rock is not dead, it just smells funny. No particular reason to get it out of mothballs, either, unless you have a hankering for a Bill Bruford drum solo. Who? Exactly. Still, it’s fun to hear a band not afraid to channel its inner Ambrosia from time to time, and such is the case with the adventurous indie power-pop outfit Saint Motel. One of the hotter tickets on the sizzling platter that is L.A. indie rock these days, the foursome of singer/guitarist A/J Jackson, lead guitarist Aaron Sharp, bassist Dak (just Dak, you know, like Cher) and drummer Greg Erwin offer a guitar-heavy, mini-operatic attack like Queen fronted by the man-love child of Rivers Cuomo and Brandon Flowers.

Their new single, “Puzzle Pieces,” begins with a bouncy piano figure and segues into exuberant indie rock with glam flourishes and Franz Ferdinand influence. Along the way there’s a pulsating guitar undercurrent, a wash of electronics and a soaring, slightly off-kilter chorus featuring a sing-along “Fuh-fuh-face of puzzle pieces” refrain. It’s an approach that’s crisp, humorous and, at least in this case, somewhat wholesome. Finally, a band that goes well with whiskey AND low-fat milk!

The guys in Saint Motel met in film school and that cinematic flair is apparent in every twist and turn of their musical merry-go-round. Their six-song debut EP, “ForePlay,” also contains imaginative and slickly produced videos for each song that showcase an OK Go-like whimsy, though with less choreography (and for just $5, the EP is a real bargain in this recession that’s over but really isn’t). In the clip for “Butch,” the band members spring to life out of a school yearbook and Polaroid picture, like “Buddy Holly” holograms from a post-modern indie-preppy almanac.

Saint Motel’s visual and theatrical tendencies extend to their live shows, which have drawn rave reviews from people whose reviews read like raves. The band tends toward the “event” motif, having staged concerts which monikers such as “The Kaleidoscopic Mind Explosion in 3D” and “Make Contact,” and annually hosts a Valentine’s Zombie Prom. Nobody in the audience throws toast at them just yet, but the night is young.

Still, it’s the music that grabs your attention. Jackson owns an expressive modern rock croon that can and often does slip into a pleasant falsetto (not a dry seat in the house), and secret weapon Sharp’s guitar playing offers all manner of sonic rave-up and whiplash roar. With “Puzzle Pieces” racking up impressive download numbers and airplay on a World Famous radio station or two, Saint Motel might soon be upgraded to four-star status.

Lykke Li - What Rhymes with 'Wound'?

Just a couple of cymbals from a one-woman band

In the world of Swedish music vehicles, ABBA would be like a Volvo: steady and solid, yet luxurious, a name brand that states, “Show me your extended service and I’ll show you my drive shaft.” Robyn and Ace of Bass are more like a Saab: youthful and sporty, made for androgynous close-cropped hair that can survive a good wind-whipping.  Then there’s The Hives and Soundtrack of Our Lives, the rock equivalent of muscular models like Koenigsegg and Jösse Car. So what to make of Lykke Li, the otherworldly electro-indie muse who just released her second full-length album, “Wounded Rhymes”? Maybe more like GOX Teknik, a high-performance kit car replica, with a touch of oddball industrial development and just a hint of Teen Spirit. 

Again produced by Björn Yttling of fellow Swedes Peter, Björn and John, “Wounded Rhymes” retains Li’s skewed pop leanings but slinks into darker territory, a place she calls "hypnotic, psychotic and more primal" (ma, I think I’ve found the girl I want to marry!) For writing and recording purposes, she fled the gloomy confines of Stockholm and relocated to one of the few places that rival Sweden in existential psychological mind-warping. Yes, Los Angeles. Darkness, light and “CSI”-meets-the Black Dahlia dread – it’s all there on the new disc, as is Li’s uniquely displaced Scandi-Goth sensibility. Remember, this is a gal who spent ages six to 11 living on a mountaintop in Portugal.  She literally had her head in the clouds, and the skies were probably threatening.

Tribal percussion resonates throughout, especially on tracks like “Get Some,” in which Li sings like a gene-splice hybrid of Bjork, Shakira, Tori Amos and Lady GaGa starring in “I Walked with a Zombie.” In “I Follow Rivers” Li chases her man through a spooky, indie-winter version of the Olympic cross-country ski pursuit, her echo-laden vocals somewhere between girl group optimism and Stockholm whore house realism. “Silent My Song” offers a dirge-like procession appropriate for both a funeral and a “Twilight” vampire spin-the-bottle party. The ominous sounds of “Love Out of Lust” swell to ethereal chamber pop, while “Rich Kids Blues” features spiraling keyboards that would make Vanilla Fudge proud (odd, considering the only place Li has likely encountered vanilla fudge in her life is at the Stockholm Baskin Robbins). 

Best of all are Li’s vocals, which wrap around your head like deep-tissue massage. Lykee Li is well on her way to being the artist that all the weird kids can agree on, and if that’s not a name brand in the making, what is? 

Apex Manor: Puff the Magic Drinkers

Sometimes mistaken for Starsky and Hutch

Southern California is a great breeding ground for melodic rock and pop, often with a tinge of dark roots just beneath the blonde highlights. Maybe it’s the sunshine, maybe it’s the bare skin, maybe it’s the Beach Boys imagery, maybe it’s the Ecstasy in the water supply. But nobody mates lyrics that rhyme with guitars that chime to produce hummable offspring like Left Coast South. Is it any wonder our state flower is the Golden (Power) Poppy?

The latest example of our unwaveringly melodic sensibilities is Apex Manor, led by former Broken West frontman Ross Flournoy. When the latter band broke up a couple years ago, Flournoy took his Big Star-meets-the-Beatles mindset and moved from ultra-hip Silver Lake to more pastoral (sorta) Pasadena and hunkered down with an unwelcome case of writer’s block. He eventually escaped the jaws of uncertainty with help from frequent collaborator Adam Vine. Inspired by an online songwriting contest for NPR (whatever it takes), Flournoy managed to pen the aptly named track “Under the Gun,” thereby unlocking the creative floodgates. Like a Guided by Voices float chugging through the Rose Parade, he came up with a large batch of songs, some of them co-written with Vine, and soon they were to the Apex Manor born. The band was named after the peaceful environs of Vine’s apartment, a spot Flournoy dubbed his Los Angeles “Zen place.” This may be hard to envision if your apartment is more like “condemned place,” but that’s artistic inspiration for ya.

Apex Manor’s debut album, “The Year of Magical Drinking,” issued earlier this year on Merge Records, is chock full of indie rock-by-way-of-pop supporting insightful lyrics about romantic and life lessons learned. The opening track, “Southern Decline,” envelops you in a tumbling cascade of guitar, piano and drums, and cruises to the finish line on a bank of “ooh ooh ooh” vocals. The aforementioned “Under the Gun” is a propulsive number with lyrics like “Where were you / when I was turning blue / I tried to breath but you were gone.” “My My Mind” finds Flournoy offering romantic musings in a simple, understated growl a la Pete Yorn. “Teenage Blood” cranks up the guitar energy as Apex Manor channels its inner Strokes with the refrain “got teenage blood running through my veins” / “got teenage blood boiling in my brain.” You can practically feel the percolating hormones. On “Elemental Ways of Speaking,” guitars ring out like something from a lost Coldplay session, if Chris Martin’s lineage had been less Fab Four and more Arthur Lee and Love. “Holly Roller” is a gently acoustic ballad in which Flournoy cautions “Love is like a figure of speech /sometimes I know you can’t practice what you preach.” Then he breaks out his best Chris Isaak falsetto for the lava-like flow of “Burn Me Alive.”

Flournoy mixes plaintive yearning and joyful celebration for the feeling of an indie rock barbecue where wise hipsters frolic to a portable power pop juke box as the late afternoon sun shines through blades of freshly cut grass. There’s something in the air and it’s more than just a collection of jangling guitars, crashing symbols and welcoming vocal harmonies. Apex Manor has amassed a military stockpile of memorable melodies powerful enough to be deemed weapons of mass reflection.