Perfect Pussy - Say Yes To Love

about Perfect Pussy is abrasive. Singer Meredith Graves yelps undying aggression over overdriven rhythms writhing with screeches; this is not an easy listen, but it’s definitely a rewarding one.

With vocals smothered in distortion and dripping with menace, there’s no release from Perfect Pussy’s frighteningly tight grip. There’s a definitive feel to the unbridled noise on display on debut ‘Say Yes to Love’, mainly in that it channels many influences without ever letting them define the record. Whether it’s early Japandroids or pissed-at-the-world Sonic Youth, there’s a sense of a familiarity that permeates through the release, even though it’s remarkably fresh. It’s these flashes of reference points that make the entire product all the more surprising.

On the blistering opener ‘Driver’, it’s immediately apparent that the next 23-minutes will be full of vitriol and blood-boiling warmth, almost to the point of frothing over. And from that point onwards, it rarely lets up. The few moments that come close to a break, are in the come downs or builds in a number of the songs. Of particular note is the 3-and-a-half minutes of foreboding fuzz at the end of ‘Advance Upon the Real’.

The crumbling of sound on closer ‘VII’ is where the record reaches its peak, and it does so by decimating what came before it. The intense battering of noise is something to behold, striving for something so far from beauty it fold back in on itself. At a succinct length, the album does exactly what it needs to do without a second to spare. It may resemble a vicious beating at times, but the price of entry is so low, that it’s worth it regardless.