There's not much information out there about Brooklyn trio Household or their debut Items, but even if there was, it wouldn't be easy to find. When I first heard the infectious, spring-loaded "Go Away", I naively typed "Household Items" into Google. What I found was, of course, not information about the record but instead some kind of timeless commentary on domestic boredom: top results included "household items to masturbate with," "household items to make a bong out of," and-- why not cut out the middleman-- "household items that will get you high." A few more precise keywords ("Brooklyn," "Young Marble Giants-influenced," "guitars that sound like they've been strung with rubber bands") led me to the record on their Bandcamp, but once I got listening I realized that Google, in its sly wisdom, might have had it right the first time. Items is an ode to domestic boredom, romantic dissatisfaction, and the emotional detachment that results from feeling imprisoned within routine.
The most immediately refreshing thing about Household is that-- in a moment when most melodic punk comes with an obligatorily caked-on layer of distortion-- Items sounds cleaner than a Stepford Wife's countertop. Jenna Weiss-Berman's spartan percussion, Isabel Freeman's bouncing basslines, and Talya Cooper's pristine riffs interlock with utility and precision. Like Austin duo Yellow Fever and San Francisco's Grass Widow, Household specialize in minimalist, retro-tinged post-punk that's as indebted to indie pop as it is to Wire. But the wry attitude of Cooper and Weiss-Berman's vocals recall nobody so much as the patron saint of new wave sardonicism, Waitresses frontwoman Patty Donahue. Listen close and you'll swear you can hear their eyeballs rolling all through the minute-long sass-fest "Never After". "No-o/ Don't call me/ I'll call you," Cooper promises. Yeah, right.
"I always write these 'not-angry-just-disappointed lyrics,'" Cooper said in a recent interview, and there's a fitting sense of restraint, repression, and even passive-aggressiveness that emerges from these tunes. "Cold Hands" paints a portrait of a love affair in shades of dull, passionless gray ("Your laundry is folded and your dinner is made/ Your window shows cars and people, they all look the same") while the sarcastically titled "Our Song", laden with Cooper and Weiss-Berman's off-kilter harmonies, laments, "This is how we spend our days/ Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Because the record's so thematically dour, Household are at their best when they kick up the tempo. "Go Away" turns a song about an emotionally unavailable lover into a briefly cathartic pogo jam: Cooper and Weiss-Berman's disparate vocal melodies braid in and out before combining into a minimalist's take on the anthemic chorus. "Defective!/ Defective!" they shout, and it comes off like a death sentence for a relationship that sounds about as steamy as a broken microwave.
Items doesn't show much range, but at a taut 18 minutes, it's over before its one note runs its course. Still, with all this talk of drudgery and weariness, you're right to ask: What keeps an album about boredom from being excruciatingly boring? In Household's case, it's their grasp on melody (the songs are catchy and simple without sounding too sing-songy) and their savvy terseness (another band might stretch a song like "Never After" past the minute mark, but it wouldn't have as much bite). The sole song to break the three-minute barrier is the finale, "Cold Hands", which also contains the only moment when that tightly contained passive aggression simmers to a boil. The track ends with Weiss-Berman raising her voice: As she repeats her initially mild-mannered refrain-- "You've got the coldest hands anyway"-- it suddenly builds into a shout. It hints at a muted rage just below the surface, and makes us hope that Household's next release might find them kicking down doors.
