Honeyblood’s Thrift Shop EP was the stuff of serendipitous discoveries. The EP—basically a cassette single, B-side and all—was recorded in a bathroom and sounds as such, but its lyrics were at turns sharp and swooning, with just enough charm breaking through the lo-fi roar. The band's members, Glaswegians Stina Tweeddale (Boycotts) and Shona McVicar (Partwindpartwolf), met at a show both acts were playing and bonded over being women in their respective bands—in Tweeddale’s case, the only woman in the band—as well as the music they grew up with. Thrift Shop's crunchy cover of The Innocence Mission’s “The Girl on My Left”—an inspired choice from a 1990s act with a devoted cult fanbase—spoke to both connective threads.
Honeyblood have since signed to Fat Cat and scrubbed out the static with producer Peter Katis (Interpol, the National); inevitably, the duo have picked up a slew of comparisons to acts of the past (the Breeders, Throwing Muses, Hole) that Honeyblood have also mentioned as influences. However, the band has no shortage of current-day peers, from hypermelodic rock acts like Best Coast, countrymates Camera Obscura, Speedy Ortiz, and Courtney Barnett (whom Honeyblood opened for). So it can be hard to hear the duo's self-titled debut on its own terms, but Honeyblood is far from pastiche: they don’t sound that much like their influence, except perhaps in how they arrange their harmonies or in short three-second bursts. The first bars of “Choker”, in particular, could fool a few people into thinking it’s a Deal sister singing; the raised-eyebrow inflections on “No Spare Key” are unnerving exact matches to Tanya Donelly’s repertoire.
One part of ‘90s indie lineage that usually goes unmentioned among the nostalgics is that the era's albums tended to dissolve into filler in the back third, and Honeyblood is no exception. Just looking at the album's tracklist, you can almost pinpoint the spot where they’ll break the monotony with an uptempo cut—in this case, the clipped exasperation and petulant shout-along of “All Dragged Up”—but for the most part, Honeyblood admirably sidesteps the potential pitfalls. Some bands record lo-fi albums as a statement of purpose; others because that’s all they could afford. Honeyblood were previously in the latter position, and as a result their debut doesn’t sound overproduced as much as it does properly heightened, like a well-developed photograph. The lovelorn “Fall Forever” melts on record like a sugarcube, “No Spare Key” and single “Bud” receive a clean frame around their lyrics, “Killer Bangs” is properly raucous, and the quieter “Super Rat” is gracefully produced, with guitars that initially sound like little pirouettes escalating the song to the level of ripping contempt: “SCUM! BAG! SLEAZE! SLIME! BALL! GREASE!”
As you might imagine from that exultation, Honeyblood is populated by the canonical post-riot-grrrl cast of characters: asshole dudes, and the women exasperated or over them in the most cathartic ways. But though Tweeddale’s still working through growing pains as a lyricist—for every great opening salvo, there’s a throat-clearing hedge—Honeyblood’s got a sense of voice some debut acts would be lucky to possess. “Choker”, in particular, feints past platitudes and scumball-sleaze dude clichés to become something more layered; it was inspired by Angela Carter’s story “The Bloody Chamber,” about a bride marrying a man implied to be the Marquis de Sade, whose wedding gift is a choker of “flashing crimson jewels round [her] throat, bright as arterial blood”; the song, accordingly, whiplashes from hooky to doomy to unnervingly placid. It’s not exactly a dark song, though, which is key, as the best moments on Honeyblood work in complex emotions.
“Biro” is the most wistful track on the album, a late-summer wash that sounds gorgeous on record. It possesses the record's most lasting hook, as well as its most indelible line: “All the pain you’ve been through will be the making of you.” It works both as something to take to heart and a to-date career statement, as the making of Honeyblood turned out all right, after all.
