Artist: Clean Girls

Artist: Clean Girls

Review by Jessi Roti – @JessiTaylorRO

Album: Expensive Tastes

Links: https://www.facebook.com/cleangirls

https://cleangirls.bandcamp.com/album/expensive-tastes-split

Indecipherable lyrics, pounding away at an instrument, scream-like vocals that make my vocal chords ache just listening to it…I like a band that doesn’t care if anyone really likes them. At least, they act like they don’t care. Case in point, Clean Girls; a trash-punk trio that features only one biological girl and absolutely nothing clean.

Drums that sound like knives recklessly stabbing away against the backdrop of a relentless banging on guitar strings drive the first track, “Portion Control.” After a minute and a half of shattering vocals, instrumental destruction takes over. An onslaught of distortion pours out of the speakers in a way that would inspire quite the mosh pit, I imagine. That seems to be the name of Clean Girls’ game, scream and destroy.

The second half, “Day of the Woman,” follows a majority of the same recipe. The clash of the cymbals employs a speed and ferocity that’s been lacking in a lot of newer punk tracks. The only difference is the 45 seconds where Clean Girls allow the listener to catch their breath. At the 1:30 minute-mark, a melodic breakdown creates a shift that makes it feel like everything is happening in slow motion. No sooner as you feel relaxed are you thrust back into the race with an explosion of beautiful cacophony.

That’s the “it” factor regarding punk music, that “beautiful cacophony.” It’s not pleasing to the ear, yet you don’t want to turn it off. The aggression that’s there, the brilliant lack-of-finesse (as made popular by the Sex Pistols), it’s so relatable that you want to be a part of it because you feel like you can be. Anybody could be a “clean girl,” that’s one of the best things about ‘em.