Le Butcherettes
Sin Sin Sin
Rodriguez Lopez Productions
“He just stares/ but it’s not staring/ it’s sin tonight… “ are the first words Terri Gender Bender (née Teresa Suárez) sings on the first track of Sin Sin Sin. The vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist of Le Butcherettes delivers originality on her debut full-length by combining familiar, yet disparate elements – garage rock, feminism, and literature. The three-piece, Mexican-bred, L.A.-based band caught the attention of Omar Rodriguez (of the Mars Volta), who produced and released Sin Sin Sin on his imprint Rodriguez Lopez Productions.
The 13-song Sin Sin Sin is minimalist yet cerebral and funny yet sincere. The badass frontwoman (who is barely out of her teens, mind you) delivers lyrics about lust, gender politics, and social justice without preaching or pretension. Not an easy feat. Ms. Gender Bender name drops F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.D. Salinger in the sludgy organ-based “All You See in Me is Death.” She pleads, tongue-in-cheek, “help me/ put me back together… you can’t do math” in a song named after a German mathematician. “Leibniz Language” is the longest track and features Devo-esque staccato keyboard lines. The next song is the aptly titled “Bang!” – a blast of punk energy about the violence in Mexico.
The rest of the album is a potpourri of simple chords and swirling keyboards. Half the songs are just shy of two minutes, the rest are double. In addition to references to other literary giants like Henry Miller and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Terri mixes things up by including a chunky instrumental (“Riko’s Smooth Talking Mother”) and a song featuring only a drum beat and a single lyric: “take my dress off” (“Dress Off”). There’s the P.J. Harvey Dry-era choked guitar strums of “I’m Getting Sick of You.” Then the jazzy (seriously) “The Actress That Ate Rousseau” saunters in a couple tracks later with Ms. Gender Bender singing cabaret style. And that’s not even the most out-there song. The carnival-esque “Mr. Tolstoi” ends Sin Sin Sin with Terri singing in, of course, a Russian accent. Sin Sin Sin makes a lasting impression in under 40 minutes.
Le Butcherettes: http://lebutcherettes.net
