Le Butcherettes — bi/MENTAL (1 Feb. 2019)

                    Le Butcherettes — bi/MENTAL (1 Feb. 2019) Formed: 2008 in Mexico City, Mexico
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
Album release: 1 Feb. 2019
Record Label: Rise Records
Duration:     49:23
Tracks:
01. spider/WAVES (feat. Jello Biafra)   5:47
02. give/UP   3:40
03. strong/ENOUGH   4:20
04. father/ELOHIM   2:19
05. little/MOUSE   3:11
06. in/THE END   3:46
07. nothing/BUT TROUBLE   3:49
08. la/SANDÍA   2:44
09. struggle/STRUGGLE   4:14
10. dressed/IN A MATTER OF SPEECH   4:31
11. mother/HOLDS (feat. Alice Bag)   3:46
12. sand/MAN   3:41
13. /BREATH   3:25
℗ 2018 Rise Records
•    All tracks written by Teri Gender Bender
Credits:
ƒ    Alan Ashcraft   Art Direction, Design, Layout
ƒ    Alice Bag   Featured Artist
ƒ    Teri Gender Bender   Composer
ƒ    Jello Biafra   Featured Artist
ƒ    Lindsey Byrnes   Band Photo, Cover Photo
ƒ    Robert Cheek   Engineer
ƒ    Chris Common   Engineer, Mastering, Mixing
ƒ    Jon DeBaun   Engineer
ƒ    Jerry Harrison   Producer
ƒ    Mon Laferte   Featured Artist
ƒ    Kevin Moore   Design, Layout
ƒ    Eric “ET” Thorngren   Engineer
ψ     Le Butcherettes => Siouxsie Siouz + Patti Smith. Tento záznam mi připomíná klasická témata, jako jsou „Horse“ od Patti Smith (Dec. 13, 1975) a „New York“ od Lou Reeda (Jan. 10, 1989). Umělci, kteří se otevřou a nechávají všechno. Položte jehlu do drážky, poslouchejte toto album a nechte ho dostat do krevního oběhu. Budete rádi, že jste to udělali.
Review
ƒ    As immediate and ferocious as Le Butcherettes punk~rock was on previous albums, they’ve grown in excitingly weird ways. While Le Butcherettes had split their more synthetic moments on previous records, they have found a way to balance them into an overpowering sound. Though this does result in some eccentric moments on the record, Le Butcherettes have shown us they’re still one of the most interesting bands in modern punk.
ƒ    Without a moment to breathe, “spider/WAVES” sets the album off like a film that drops you right into the action. Between all of Teri Gender Bender’s (who we’ll refer to as Bender here for simplicity) angular hooks and the tumbling drums, the song is a truly powerful dance between unhinged production and theatrically large drops. “give/UP” kicks right in with oppressive feedback and a drive from Bender that makes you feel like you’re going insane just as often as you want to jump up dancing. As the track dances between a kind of 90s desert rock and something menacingly demented, it’s only a lighter sonic weight to the mix that holds it back from being truly utterly devastating. Bender takes an intriguingly electronic turn on “strong/ENOUGH” while she holds things down with a strong, distorted end of things to make her story of overcoming toxic partners really strike the right tone.
ƒ    There’s an uplifting bombast on the other hand to “father/ELOHIM” as horns play against the colossal drums to make a track that really soars. Between all of the party~like euphoria and the atypical rhythms, Bender makes some bright and fun music for Le Butcherettes that I didn’t think was possible (though I’m already losing my mind to it). “little/MOUSE” does take a much more typical pop direction, but it’s in this sound that Bender lets all her weird vocal styling and tonal quirks really come out at full force. There’s a palpable sadness to “in/THE END” where Bender harnesses her fierce singing to more melancholic ends, and plays with more fragile synths to touch on the painful moments in her life. It’s out of this same dreamy haze however that she pushes you through some of the album’s most wonderfully disorientating instrumental crushes.
ƒ    Though “nothing/BUT TROUBLE” has its own familiar undercurrent to its writing, it’s all the strange pauses, breathy breaks and blown~out bass that livens it up. With this and a lot of triumphant charisma, Bender really makes you want to join in and have fun while listening to what she’s doing. “la/SANDIA” sees Mon Laferte lending a more silky feeling to Le Butcherettes otherwise grimy tones, and keeps listeners on their toes as a result. Bender’s writing falls into a cloudy mix of harmony and dangling hooks on “struggle/STRUGGLE” where she creates tension and conflict but really tests listener ability to hold on. Definitely more of a statement than a cohesive piece of music, this track is at least a stirring sonic experience to say the least.
ƒ    Rounding out the end of the record, tracks like “dressed/IN A MATTER OF SPEECH” prove to be more direct and powerful, and show the power that Le Butcherettes can harness in a simple song structure. With Alice Bag lending attitude, dynamic harmony and explosive screams, “mother/HOLDS” is an abrasive but emotionally intense track that will pierce your soul as much as it may be troubling to hear. Waiting for the release of “sand/MAN” rewards listener with this dazzlingly exotic moment, as Bender goes from singing about otherworldly creatures to becoming one herself. Le Butcherettes even flip the typical acoustic closer on its head a bit with “Breath” as the time~warped sounds and weird sound clips leave the album on an uneasy note that makes you want more. Just as this is fading, the throttling punches of guitar and rising vocals show Bender is also ready to take another fiery dive through her musical creativity soon.
ƒ       
Review
by Lee Adcock February 5th, 2019; Score: 9
ƒ    Guadalajara’s Le Butcherettes hardly need my praise. They’ve already blazed a trail toward the rock pantheon over the past decade — warrior and founder Terri Gender Bender has turned many a head at gigs with near~topless stunts and bloody props, and earned the blessings of other giants like Iggy Pop and John Frusciente [sp?]. Behind the crushing riffs, though, our fierce protagonist lends a voice to the women who often suffer in silence, and spins esoteric verses that smack more of avant-garde poetry than rock bravado.
ƒ    That said, though, a new obelisk rises. The peasants must again rejoice. Le Butcherette’s fourth album bi/MENTAL is a beast of a thing, a beast of many faces and fangs, that asks two tough questions: where did you come from, and where will you go? Western cultures celebrate family ties as sacred and unseverable, but then sons and fathers break out while moms and daughters stay ensnared. Here, Gender Bender pokes in the fissures between overbearing parents and captive children, the babies that anchor and liberate their tired mothers, and how the relationships caught in the middle strain under the baggage — all while the gang’s twisted heavy metal sears its imprint upon yr skull.
ƒ    Cool! Pitch talk over. Now let’s break for a minute to talk about how much bi/MENTAL rocks. Alejandra Robles Luna has that great hulking WHAM that demands reverent moshing; brutal opener ‘spider/WAVES’ crashes in with all the divine fury that Gender Bender threatens to unleash, while ‘give/UP’ shakes the ramparts of Led Zeppelin’s fortress. Yet, in a very new wave~y way, little tricks skewer ordinary songs into mutated marvels. A massive gamma ray of a synth (which sounds like one of Juana Molina’s gizmos) squirms through the wicked ‘struggle/STRUGGLE’; actual sheep seem to bleat in the Psychedelic Furs’~esque ‘little/MOUSE’. Long story short: I was constantly stupefied when I first spun bi/MENTAL, and that slackjawed sense of awe hasn’t waned much on the eighth or ninth go~round.
ƒ    And that’s just from the sound! Wait till we talk about words! The idea is that, by severing our bonds with the past, we can face the present with a clearer mind. Independence looms large over bi/MENTAL — and while Gender Bender often repels her captors with resolute ease, she’s aware that others don’t get out so swiftly. “My heart is heading out the door,” says Gender Bender in the slick breakup song ‘strong/ENOUGH’ — and in the video, the fleeing protagonist packs an actual human heart into her bag, still slimy with blood. Elsewhere, the Butches recruit Mon Laferte on the goth~tinted banger ‘la/SANDIA’ (aka ‘The Watermelon’, which codes in Spanish a rallying cry for pregnant women who get trapped by conception into an unwanted union: “no doubt we have a fire from within...flee, you don’t owe anything to anyone.”
ƒ    Of course, liberation is rarely that simple, and Gender Bender acknowledges that too. One of the most righteous moments on the album, ‘dressed/IN A MATTER OF SPEECH’, pinpoints the catharsis of birth to a horrible truth — namely, that a daughter that won’t produce has failed her parents. It’s uncanny, when you think about it, to convey a sort of catharsis that only women will know, within a song dressed in the rock theatrics of, say, Rush or Guns N’ Roses. But the Butches have done it, and I can’t hear this one without literally howling the chorus: ‘sweet natural child puts all doubts to reeeeeest’.
ƒ    I’m not sure if your copy of bi/MENTAL will end like mine does. The other most righteous moment of the album, ‘/BREATH’, marks the final phase in the retreat, when the individual seizes their own self from their roots — and, lawdy, what a finale. The oceans are parting, the earth ruptures, a fireball rends the sky in half — ‘this is goodbye, farewell to all the known gods’ — and then, just like that, it’s over. Silence. Which leaves you, ultimately, to wonder if this Super Saiyan getaway blasts off into the stratosphere, or snaps back to terra firma. That’s the real genius of Gender Bender’s vignettes — no matter how many times you rock out to Le Butcherettes, you can never totally crack the codes. And that’s fine, because the intrigue just adds to their already towering altar. ƒ      http://drownedinsound.com/
Review
AUTHOR: Caleb Newton
FEBRUARY 5, 2019; Score: *****
ƒ    Le Butcherettes sound passionately committed to their craft on the noisy punk band’s newest album, bi/MENTAL, out now on Rise Records. That craft includes the band members themselves so that the tracks present an outpouring of personality both in a way that establishes the speaker’s own perspective and abruptly takes the listener along for the ride.
ƒ    This personality almost immediately sticks out as a defining feature of the record, expressed through every element from the vivid lyrics to the music itself down to the album art, which features vocalist Teri Gender Bender in traditional Chichimeccan garb in honor of her grandmother, who was a family musician. Throughout the release, her work feels more committed to painting an engaging picture than hitting a particular technically proficient point just for its own sake, and that elevates the project.
ƒ    The presentation proves rather straightforward and direct as the band zero further in on what has often set them apart over the years. There’s a galloping energy at work, and at the same time, there’s a careful introspection present, too. These elements unite to craft unique emotional spaces that are both substantively self~sustaining and allow the listener to branch off into their own understandings and experiences.
ƒ    Teri’s vocals often take center stage, providing a form of support for the whole experience as she confidently weaves between concepts and even extremes. Noisy punk rock music fills in the gaps as her bandmates offer a nuanced, carefully selected take on their emotional dashes into the crevices left by our human experience. Often the music feels itself alive as it twists in a fashion well outside of traditional conventions in what can only be described as the pattern of our ever~shifting, oftentimes deeply shaky lives spread across this planet.
ƒ    This time around, there’s a clear focus on the triumphant aspect of the band’s music as Le Butcherettes make their way across bi/MENTAL to what ends up an epic finale. Teri Suarez (her real name) sings that she’s “strong enough” to move on past a toxic relationship at one point and thanks to the passion and human touch she presents in her vocals, she’s legitimately convincing that we’re all strong enough to rush right on past the tangled web of relationships that build up over time as we make our way through this strange place. ƒ    https://newnoisemagazine.com/
Website: https://www.lebutcherettesofficial.com/
Discography:
• 2011  Sin, Sin, Sin  (Rodriguez Lopez/R.L. Productions)
• 2014  Cry Is for the Flies  (Ipecac/Nadie Sound)
• 2015  A Raw Youth  (Ipecac)
• 2019  bi/MENTAL  (Rise Records)
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Le Butcherettes — bi/MENTAL (1 Feb. 2019)

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