Girl Band: The Early Years EP

To listen to Girl Band’s The Early Years EP is to encounter a group of industrial noiseniks approximating mercilessly aggressive dance music with traditional rock instrumentation. In a mere 21 minutes, they tear through five songs with a rapid-fire blitzkrieg intensity heavy on rhythm and light on melody. But this is not music to be sung along with. Rather, the music of Girl Band is designed to get the body moving in ways heretofore unimagined: think early ‘00s dance rock filtered through the world’s largest buzz-saw factory operating at capacity during a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions and you’re halfway there. These boys know how to create a racket, but also put together a helluva dance set. From the blistering opener “Lawman” through to the penultimate “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?”, Girl Band refuses to let up, collapsing into the last track, a lo-fi live recording called “The Cha Cha Cha” that lasts barely 30 seconds.

Far from easy listening, The Early Years EP is pure frenetic aggression filtered through massively fuzzed out bass, intricately pummeling drums and skittering, scattershot guitar. When the words do come through, they’re a fragmented, nightmarish distillation of the group’s sound and fury. Those who like their dance rock on the noisier side will find much to love here.