Critter

 

After Ad Vitam here is another demo (an EP actually) from a Montreal-based band, demo which is also part of the Demo Fest initiative.

So Critter is a new band from Quebec featuring the video artist "Scabrielle" Mulholland on vocals who is also singing in Salt (which demo can be found on the Demo Fest page as well).

Critter's All Better is directly in line with the women's bands of the late 80's / early 90's, at the very beginning of the Riot Girl movement when groups like Bikini Kill and Sleater Kinney were "recycling" the 80's punk into the 90's "sound".

A slightly low-fi sound, some kind of background guitar/bass parts which melodies are not so distinctive and some powerful feminine vocals, very much emphasized by the bewitching punk voice of Gabrielle, that's the simple and eternal formula chosen by the three Canadian friends.

  The lyrics are quite something here, there are long texts which tell some kind of "stories" that got more or less a strong "personal" taste like Mad Max, Do They Know (Creep) or Noseblood and there are these little something about relationships (Shift And Drift), about depressed moments (All Better) or just about a poor dog life (Lap Dog)... But whatever it is it always sounds great, it always goes really well with the flow, as if the music had been created to fit the forms of the lyrics, making the songs instantly familiar... and this record feeling like home..

 

 

To me there is a lot of the very beginning of Kathleen Hanna's band (with less fury and anger though) here, the same straight forward, simple and honest way of making punk rock.

 

Playing punk rock simply to express oneself, to say intimate things, without trying to "overdo it", without trying to adopt the pose of the "punk rocker" or to fit into a genre or something, without trying to impress or seduce and it's the simplicity and the frankness of these 7 tracks that make me greatly appreciate this release...

All Better is a very exciting demo, a very promising start and I expect Critter to come back as one of the top female-fronted punk band of 2021.

But please... make more but don't lose what you got.

You can listen to Critter in Rien à Faire #18.

 

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