They know good music in Wisconsin. Wade through the Bon Iver, cabin-in-the-woods hooey and you’ll locate a mecca built by Garbage, Violent Femmes, and the Promise Ring. I’m no mathematician, but I would add Madison’s Heather Sawyer into that equation. She plays under all types of names, including Proud Parents, Boo/Hiss, the Hussy, and Baby Tyler Band, but her work as Heather the Jerk runs hot. not very motorcycle (and its well-named follow-up, the Very Motorcycle EP) kicked major ass two years ago, pardon my French. Tagged on Bandcamp as a “one lady band,” Sawyer has an impossibly great command of pop music—in her very capable bands, the whole genre turns quick, crunchy, and ramshackle.
Sawyer’s new tape, Scroll If You Love Devil, is a fast and strange eruption. Her homespun DIY style exists in service to old-world pop music, and the songs within will knock you sideways. I’m attracted to sugary melodies sunk beneath muggy distortion like a moth is attracted to a mercury light, and Sawyer’s latest is no exception: the record is contagiously dynamic, teeming with top and bottom line interplay, punchy garage tones, and a veneer of bleary, choky fuzz. Scroll If You Love Devil is punk-pop jolted to life by Brill Building yore and girl-group throwbacks. “Said What I Said” alternates between “nah-nah-nah” singalongs, nasty guitar harmonics, and slamming hooks. A surfing melody made by swooning sock-hop strums, pealing cymbals, and a hundred lightning bolts bursts at the heart of “I’m On My Way.” “Bahboozay (Ode to a Cat)” is frantic and bratty, packed with vertical attacks and a hemorrhaging drum beat.
60 percent of the songs on Scroll If You Love Devil run under two minutes, but the very best ones tick just above that. I’m talking about “My Dumb Brain,” which features these “ooh-ooh” backup vocals that numb me up like mother’s little helper, and “Wintertime Blues,” which sports a blown-out solo from Sawyer’s Boo/Hiss teammate Josh Beihler. Yuasa-Exide’s Doug Busson plays guitar on the former, but it’s mostly just Sawyer pouncing on those scales. “Way It Goes” is flanked by power-clang licks, a super-charged tempo, heavy toms, and Beihler’s twinkly melodica. Look, I’m easy to please. Just plug some lo-fi guitars into this heart of mine and I’ll start lassoing the moon. The riffs scattered across Scroll If You Love Devil swell up like those dinosaurs you put in the bathtub. As Sawyer’s voice summons the ghost of Poly Styrene on “Get Off My Lawn,” her hands talk to Johnny Ramone. The song is easy on the ear even when those buzzsaw downstrokes start shouting at me.
Be they pop or punk, Sawyer isn’t afraid to play up her influences. Scroll If You Love Devil joyously recalls Cub, Vivian Girls, and Cassie Ramone, and her take on Loli & The Chones’ “Hate Your Guts” is a real “ooh-hoo-hoo” shit-kicker wired to the gills with brashy lead lines. She even does her best “Dave Davies slashing his Elpico amp” impression on “Nothing Changes” and it lands loudly. But the rippers do dissipate by the tape’s end, as a 70-second singalong gets by on a lone, loping guitar pluck, buggy noise effects, and returning blinks of Beihler’s melodica. Heather the Jerk wail and clatter in steely guitar vocab and tin-can percussion but let their gentlest impulses soothe. The textures here are exceptional, covering unbelievable ground in under 20 minutes. The sonic fuckery of Scroll If You Love Devil burns fast and high. [Cavity Creeps Records]
Matt Mitchell is the editor of Paste. They live in Los Angeles.
