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Punk rockers Be Your Own Pet, originally from Nashville, Tennessee,
first hit record stores in the UK last year when their singles "Fire
Department" and "Damn Damn Leash," were released on
Rough Trade in the UK. Rough Trade discovered Be Your Own Pet in 2004
playing the CMJ Marathon in New York City and at SXSW in Austin, Texas,
performing songs from their CD-R Damn Damn Leash. Their singles
caught the attention of Sonic Youth's guitarist, Thurston
Moore, who signed the band to his record label, Ecstatic Peace.
The band's debut full-length self-titled album, produced by Steve
McDonald of Red Kross, was released on June 6, 2006 the
same day The Omen hit movie theaters.
Like The Omen, there is an animalistic snarl in the ferocious
guitar riffs and a savage sizzle in the stomping rhythm sections.
Their music has all the characteristics of power pop punk with frenzied
thruways similar to artists like Tiger Army, Anti-Flag,
The Soviettes, and The Dead Kennedys. Their album is
good value for the price with 15 songs that growl, thunder, and heat
up like a wild house party with gauges that pull on the reins when
the fervor gets too out of control.
Taming the wildness are the vocal melodies of 19 year old lead singer
Jemina Pearl-Abregg whose band buddies, 18 year old Nathan
Vasquez on bass, 19 year old Jonas Stein on guitar, and
18 year old Jamin Orral on drums, produce rugged chord textures
roped by thick, agile rhythmic motions. The electric surges implanted
in the passages act as an accelerating agent, speeding up the tempo
like in their songs "Thresher's Flail" and "Stairway
To Heaven." The band activates a gyrating motion by creating
furious guitar tapping effects and deep toned bass and drum punches.
The sequences rotate savagely, accelerating the throttle with each
turn like in the track "Let's Get Sandy (Big Problem)",
until the frequencies spin themselves to a point of saturation when
the motor fizzles out, becoming sedate and releasing the coiling motions.
The motor starts up again with the next track, building up momentum,
spinning furiously until the chorus is exhausted and then waning down
the speed in the outro.
The album closes like it began: with racing flares, thick echoing
effects, and whipping vocals that thrash liberally and heat up the
flow of the melodies with lyrical content that is bold and brash.
The vocals color outside the lines on the mid-tempo tune "Adventure",
with a seductive voicing like the siren's lull of songstress Lana
Turner, all the while surrounded by a tamed jungle of bongo beats.
Be Your Own Pet takes power pop punk arrangements and spins
them furiously, draws friction across their lines, builds tension
and coiling motions, and releases the tightness that's been amassed.
The band's savage sizzle dotted by trumping drum fills creates a furnace
of molten sound waves tamed by vocals that direct the music's frequency.
Be Your Own Pet are making power pop punk vibrations fashionable.
They will be touring across North America through 2006 and releasing
singles from their self-titled album.
-Susan Frances
Tracklising:
1. Thresher's Flail
2. Bunk Trunk Skunk
3. Bicycle Bicycle, Your Are My Bicycle
4. Wildcat
5. Adventure
6. Fuuuuuuun
7. Stairway To Heaven
8. Bog
9. Girls on TV
10. We Will Vacation, You Can Be My Parasol
11. Let's Get Sandy (Big Problem)
12. October, First Account
13. Love Your Shotgun
14. Fill My Pill
15. OUCH
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