We Raggazi
Wolves With Pretty Lips
Suicide Squeeze
We Raggazi’s first remarkable entrance onto the no-wave battlefield, Wolves With Pretty Lips, is actually their third album. Scene leeches they aren’t. It’s obvious they had time to hone their skills on their two previous outings, because this album is rife with excellent minimalism and dark execution. The strafing treble jags of guitar are undercut by an impossibly low key-bass growl, while the drums do a fine job of keeping time in seemingly limitless chaos. It’s high praise to say that musically the band is only second to The Chromatics in the stripped-down no-wave army.
Unfortunately, singer Tony Rolando’s voice combines Billy Corgan’s nasal trill with John Fogerty’s mush-mouthed howl, yielding the equivalent of some pre-teen backwoods witch. The worst offender is “I Want Butterflies (All the Time),” where Rolando gives a dead-on impression of the bleating lead sheep in Out Lady Peace. My advice: take one last cue from The Chromatics and bury the vocals, no-wave has very little use for them anyway.
Suicide Squeeze: http://www.suicidesqueeze.net
