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REVIEW: The Sick Lipstick: Sting Sting Sting
7.16.2003 by
The Sick Lipstick: Sting Sting Sting [Tiger Style, 2003] (mp3)
Three words? Screechy bleepy party
Rising from the ashes of the infamous Black Cat #13, Toronto's The Sick Lipstick traipses through the same musical landscapes as their forebears, though with less spastic abandon. Sting Sting Sting admirably covers its bleepy, dissonant punk rock territory, but offers little that's new in the tried and true genre. The record is a good-time-listen that doesn't pretend at anything more: a party where the liquor is easily accessible, the company friendly, and the rock doesn't stop.
With twelve tracks each clocking in at three minutes or less, these kids don't mess around. Allan Graham (guitar) and Mark McLean (keyboards) disagree beautifully, creating a discordant smear that would make Thurston Moore shed a tear. Lindsey Gillard's snotty vox careens across these songs like a six-year-old on a sugar-high, though the overly-pronounced vocals sometimes sound like emulations of Gillard's female counterparts in Melt Banana and Deerhoof. Dennis Amos' work behind the kit keeps it together perfectly, without being showy.
Recorded and mixed in a mere four days, an appropriate sense of urgency pervades the proceedings - see: the fumbling hand on guitar-strings, and the cough, which precede "Mommy's At The Grocery Store." The hurried recording is also a detriment, as none of the twelve tracks particularly stand out from one-another. It would've been nice to hear a time change, a slow(er) number or some tracks driven by the keyboard rather than the guitar.
But these are minor grievances, as The Sick Lipstick's debut full-length shows great promise. Sting Sting Sting probably won't find its way to any year-end top-ten lists, but at your next party, you'll see more kids dancing to this than to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
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