A few years ago, when Kristin Gundred and John Paul Labno were jamming drummerless, the duo eschewed Craigslist-fishing for trap-work, and Gundred decided to hop behind the set herself. For a band trying to make noise in a crowded field playing basic blues-based pop-rock, moving the attractive female lead behind the most cumbersome instrument around was a gamble to say the least, but a few years later, it's starting to pay off. GOP's MySpace page fell under the sniffer of Rilo Kiley/the Elected's Blake Sennett, who saw potential enough to produce the trio's first full-length record Humanimals, as well as convince his manager Dave Holmes (who also handles Coldplay and Interpol), to release their debut on his DH Records.
Once writers got wind of them, comparisons between the GOP and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came fast and furious. At least superficially, there's something there: both are trios with a bold chick singer and two less-bold dudes, and both share a generalized orienting framework toward rock-- Nuggets-style blues-riff variations and howling female vocals. What separates the GOP from the YYYs is evident in the former's moniker, really: Instead of lacquering on the gallery grime and experimenting with texture and meter, Grand Ole Party's fifth-generation blooze is as uncomplicated and artless as nickel beer night or a sweaty, jam-packed house party. A lyric from the surf-rock inflected "Belle Isle" should give a good-enough idea of GOP's M.O.: "How can the young things keep at bay/ The dark shadows, if they can't drink them away?"
The San Diego trio is certainly self-aware, as well, and wears its starkness as honesty. During the refrain of the call-to-arms "Turn on, Burn on", Gundred asks, "Why can't we be simple, and enough to matter"? There's not much new on Humanimals, but its simple, spacious throwback rock is rendered ingratiatingly, recalling the re-energized greaser rock of Mink Deville and Richard Hell, with occasional hints of a boiled-down Pretenders in the cooed background vocals of Labno and bassist Michael Krechnyak-- especially on the catchy choruses to "Insane", "Redrum Heart", and "Dirty Spirit Rag". Lyrically, Gundred indexes the time-tested signifiers of rock-as-rebellion-for-lost-youth, her strained howl showing naïveté and toughness in equal parts. Humanimals' brassy opener "Look Out Young Son" casts her as the "bastard child" of "rough love and abandonment," and "Bad, Bad Man" is a lesson learned: another Little Red Riding Hood caveat against men who would "lead you down temptation lane." As might be expected, Gundred occasionally veers off course from simple to simplistic, relying on moon-spoon-June rhyme schemes and iffy attempts at social comment. The chorus of "Nasty Habits" tells us that they not only "make us who we are," but also "take us very far," and the more ham-handed, Hell-in-a-handbasket nihilism of "Insane" offers a take on this thing called "reality television," which apparently isn't very "realistic" at all.
Ultimately, however, it's not the lyrics that stop Humanimals from rising too far above pleasant pastiche. Much more is GOP's resistance to doing what it seems built for: revving up to an explosion. Gundred's singing voice has tons of energy, to be sure, but it needs to mature past the blues-rock mirror stage to push the band into its own space. Sennett does a fine job of reining in Labno and Krechnyak to give the songs a sense of space and liveness, but I found myself on more than one occasion waiting for a big pop that never comes. Like thousands of singers before her, Gundred tries to start some shit on "Turn on, Burn on", recommending, "let's just start a fire." Despite GOP's kinetic energy, however, Humanimals stays a collection of smoldering embers that never fully ignites.
