Perfect Pussy

Here's a tip: don't Google "Perfect Pussy" at work, especially the images. Here's another tip: if you want to clear the room of AARP members, put on Perfect Pussy's album, Say Yes to Love.

Now, I'm an AARP member, and I kind of like the album, but it is a noisy assault on the eardrums. It is, to be sure, punk rock at its rawest, with snarling guitars, vicious drums, and vocals that sound as if the singer is wrapped in burlap. It recalls the days of going to see bands in sweaty, dimly lit clubs.

The title of this album, Say Yes to Love, sounds like it might belong to Celine Dion, but Perfect Pussy is the anti-Celine Dion. None of the songs, save one, could be called melodic. In fact, tracks one and two sound completely alike to me. The lead singer, Meredith Graves, who by appearance is a pixieish young woman, screams into the mic as if she were a she-devil from Hell. The lyrics, which are completely unintelligible, are revealed to be quite poetic when read on the lyric sheet.

From "Driver":

"I know nothing lasts forever
I know that hurt can go and on
Cause I eat stress and I shit blood
and buddy, I'll tell you, it never gets better"

If that's a bit too Bukowski for you, there's this from "Bells":

"We can speak the words of women and angels
But without real love, it's just sad noise
I can open my heart and let everything out
but that won't save me--I'll just be empty"

The only song that slows down enough to have a melody and to be vaguely understood is "Advance Upon the Real":

"I've been god in a rose, I've been woven into quilts
and a hundred bad songs, and I've done so much wrong
and because of me you don't like that one band anymore"

Perfect Pussy is the kind of band you listen to when you've had it with the world and need to be hear loud, brutal punk music. It's kind of a shame that Graves' vocals aren't mixed better so we can actually hear what she's singing.

Now, I'm going to look at the images of perfect pussies.