Smoosh
She Like Electric

THE REVIEW

As we were saying, the Smoosh. An unusual reality: just girls, nothing else. They reappeared this year with yet another stroke of genius: "Withershins," the album I talked about a few days ago on these shores; an unexpectedly refined and elegant turning point. But who were the Smoosh at their beginning? Two girls. Twelve and fourteen years old, Californian, charming, dressed in country outfits and flowers in their hair.

"She Like Electric". The bolt from the blue.

Because it's impossible to talk about the Smoosh without, unfortunately, referring to their age. In the Smoosh there's more, things that are missing from many other artists over 30, namely originality and talent. Because they do everything: from writing the pieces, to composition, to the artwork, to the videos. And it's not pop, or it would be too easy to point the finger at them with a smirk.

"She Like Electric" is THE bolt from the blue.

14 tracks. 31 minutes of music. Drums and keyboards. Two nymphs who already prove to be mature.
The show begins, and we are blown away. The sound is rough, bare, but it has the power of a Greek tragedy. "Massive Cure" already leads the dance with its short duration, demonstrating class and fierceness.

It's not pop, no. It's fucking, fucking sick female rock. The kind already delivered by artists of high, very high profile like PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch, softened in intent but still of great intensity.  They sound naive, but they have the ability to drill into your brain. Together they are twenty-six years old and already musically spellbind you.
They reject pure image, they play and scream. Kittens that hit and charm. You sense their naivety, the sonic flaws, but you don't care: you're in the eye of the storm. And even a beautiful song like "Rad," a delightful mélange between rap and indie-rock, would have been a disaster in other hands. They have class, no doubt about it. Class reiterated in two real opposites, which are also the two peaks of the record. Respectively  "La Pump" and "It's Not Your Day To Shine".

The first is a powerful, gut-wrenching, feminist and hysterical rock in its skewed catchiness, hypnotic in the keyboard riffs, fierce in the impassive screams that suffocate the beginning that almost seemed like pop from another time. The second is a minimal ballad that unfolds in two minutes, taking on a cheerful pop rhythm: it even manages to move, despite its cheerfulness and simplicity. 

"She Like Electric": A bolt from the blue.

And then there are unusual pieces, perhaps even unresolved, like that 1-minute indie loop that takes the title "I've Got My Own Problems To Fix," or the disorienting "Battlenose," screamed over a nearly electronic rhythm that literally tears apart the alternative yet still uplifting mood of what was previously heard.  The album escapes, rushes by, kidnapped by the passing minutes. And you don't even realize it, but everything remains. Inside. 

So let's admit it: "She Like Electric" is an album with the balls. It offers things already seen before, sure (echoes of Cat Power, PJ Harvey & Co. are quite palpable), but they are dressed in a new outfit, more childish indeed, but also more naive. And it was to be expected: perhaps to make a truly naive and spontaneous record, you need some girls, two ordinary girls, who are neither pop stars, nor vamps, nor showgirls, just two girls from a U.S. town like so many others. They scream, shatter the silence and destroy mediocrity with some good, very good music. They unleash their souls with their lyrics that never (or almost never) speak of love, and we like to see them this way: common adolescence, unknown, but always fierce.