The Ladies

They Mean Us

(Temporary Residence)

Record Review by Kate Kowsh

This album is a mess—a beautiful mess.  The demented brainchild of Rob Crow (of Pinback and Goblin Cock) and maniacal drummer Zach Hill (of Hella and Team Sleep), They Mean Us is a stretch for any musical paradigm.

Produced over a span of two years, this experimental and at times magnetically brilliant project is something to be admired for its palpable artistic chops.  It’s so in-your-face that it practically knocks your teeth down your throat.  Hill is traditionally known more for his ability to make his drum kit sound like a stick of dynamite exploded inside the snare drum rather than providing a backbone for tracks.  With The Ladies, though, he shows a controlled restraint and careful allocation of his fury, which adds enough sawdust to Crow’s overly refined verse-chorus-verse song structures.

Opener “Black Caeser/Red Sonja” is a conglomeration of subdued vocals, garden-variety drums and guitars teetering between two chords.  What really draws listeners in is how Hill and Crow experiment with time signatures.  They create an illusion of simultaneously being off and on in timing.

The closing track, “Mandatory Psycho-Freakout,” is a 12-minute saga of rapid-fire drum dings, all leading up to sporadic mini, reverse grand finales of nearly whispered vocals and teetering chord progressions.  It’s because Crow and Hill go so far out on a musical limb that this album may have trouble finding an audience.  Even fans of their other bands may not embrace it because the approachability that led Pinback to broader success has taken a leave and Hill’s breakneck vibe is noticeably more centered.  By letting these two mad musical genius, polar opposites loose in the studio, they’ve concocted a deceivingly impressive fusion that deserves some respect.