7 Year Bitch: Live at Moe

For seven loud, unrepentant years in the early ‘90s, Seattle punk rockers 7 Year Bitch stormed the clubs and airwaves with unrestrained feminist punk rock power. They described their music as “back to basics punk rock”, but it struck at the height of grunge and birth of riot grrrl, and refracts the energy that charged both those movements.

Twenty years later, it packs just as much of a punch. Thanks to the discovery of hundreds of master tapes recorded at Seattle’s Club Moe in the early days of Internet streaming, the first to be remastered and released is a 7 Year Bitch live show from 1996. Containing a dozen hits mostly from the albums Viva Zapata and Gato Negro, the release is a punk rock Tardis, reverberating with the pent-up energy and talent of a moment when music was a weapon, songwriting still meant something and feminism took the stage by storm. From the raging guitars of “MIA” — recorded in response to the murder of the band’s mentor Mia Zapata, frontwoman of the Gits — to the slow bluesy sway of “Deep in the Heart”, coalescing in a burst of grunge fuzz; from the body-surfing beats of “Hip Like Junk” to the three-chord (well, seven) growls of “Miss Understood”; Live at Moe is an unparalleled, must-have snapshot of a band at the height of their career.