Still heeding twelve year old echoes of that riotous manifesto, still "grrls, grrls, grrls," women ushered to the front of the stage; still long on passion and short on technique, it's the Bangs. It's a familiar call and response, and every static chord or fossilized scream of empowerment proves it isn't the call that's changed, it's the reply: from the solidarity of "Who's with me?" to something more like "Who cares?" Unfocused, "spirited" energy has gotten feminist rock exactly nowhere since the long-gone days of Bikini Kill, and the Bangs are determined to remain part of the problem. Shouting works when no one's listening, but as soon as you've got people's attention, you'd better have something to say. Kathleen Hanna, Sleater-Kinney, and a more enlightened few already know that, but the Bangs-- runners-up in this feminist sweepstakes-- have yet to catch on.
All that's left, evidently, is to ride the horse that brought or birthed them, pounding on the instruments until candy comes out, hacking the same ground in the ongoing saga for a Strong Female Rock-and-Role-Model. If there's one genre that fears change, it's plodding, monolithic power-punk, a mode the Bangs have down pat: from the opening grind of the title cut, it's clear they don't aspire to anything more than the riot-grrl hand-as-dealt. Maybe it runs in the family-- bassist Maggie Vail is after all the sister of former Bikini-Killer Tobi Vail-- or maybe they'd argue that there's merit to rehashing already well-hashed (and admittedly unresolved) problems in traditional fashion, playing loud, confrontational, hard-firing punk.
If the latter is the case, I respectfully disagree: if "We got art to make/ We got shit to learn," is Sarah Utter's cry (on "New Scars"), why recycle artless, ham-fisted three-chord progressions as your backing track? There's got to be an underlying anger to pull off lines like, "It's years of names and disrespect/ I won't shut up anymore"; drive can only take you so far before a dynamic shift is needed to sell the pitch. The blistering, arpeggiated buzz that contributes to "Leave It Behind", the bubblegum balladry of the unfortunately shallow "Kinda Good", and the less-is-more, sing-song breakdown on Call and Response's title track evidence at least some effort at creativity, but basically, the Bangs deliver their message exactly as you'd expect them to, chaining old songs to even older dances, all but ensuring these tunes are relegated to also-rans in a genre that, for the vast majority, was left by the wayside when it ran out of fuel.
Having to sit through this obvious repackaging of legitimate concerns-- old ideas that in light of their derivative second-generation, continue to be relevant-- is like listening to highlights from someone's trip to Agony. Lots of listeners have yet to get a headache from beating their heads on the punk rock, demanding no more than the status quo, and in the Bangs' defense there's still urgency to feminist issues in music and the world at large. These girls are still getting the message out the only way they know how, but even to that end-- as meaning with a melody (of sorts)-- the Bangs aren't cutting it.
