In any other year Brisbane's cute-as-a-lifestyle garage rockers the Grates would own the title for best female-led rock band to needlessly work "motherfucker" into a song. High praise, huh? Unfortunately, Be Your Own Pet claimed that crown on their 90-second rally cry "Bunk Trunk Skunk", from their self-titled debut album. On the BYOP song, lead singer Jemina Pearl riles the sort of knuckle-cracking fury only a teenager could conjure as she shouts, "I'm an independent muther-FUCKER." The Grates' Patience Hodgson, with nearly the same pitch, but a tamer style, opens "Inside Outside" with the cheekier "Some motherfuckers think they're born to dance." Slight discrepancies, but sometimes that philosophical divide is the difference between a searing debut and stylish reach.
The electric Hodgson, who sounds like she's riding a jet-fueled pogo on almost every song, is joined by guitarist John Patterson and drummer Alana Skyring, who make a sweet, playful style of basement band music. Occasionally it steers straight, but it mostly just zooms rudderless. On the strength of "Trampoline", a sloppily recorded gutbuster brimming with coy sexuality (sample lyric: "Use your bed like a trampoline, just for love if you know what I mean") from their debut EP, The Ouch. The Touch, the trio gained notoriety in their native Australia. That song is included here, in a re-recorded form thanks to boardsman Brian Deck, whose sturdy hand has the band recording cleaner, tighter versions of songs that probably shouldn't be so tidy. He sucks Patterson's guitar dry of feedback, crystallizing the grubby quality that made Hodgson's chirpy wails so enticing. The rank comparisons are already flowing on Hodgson: An adorable Karen O, Ari Upp on crunk juice, a hornier Corin Tucker, and so on, hardy-har-har. Don't buy it. She's not a fully-formed songwriter yet. In a live setting she looks ready to burst into flames, bouncing around on one foot, whipping her head around like a NASCAR crowd following the track. On record, her charisma seems like it's fighting in spite of itself.
What the Grates have got going for them on record is a foot-stamping simplicity to nearly all of their tracks. "Lies", which lifts a Pixies riff during the bridge, is one of the few muddy numbers here, and it excels. Even shrill opener "I Won't Survive" has a winding melody thanks to Patterson's reedy tuning. When Hodgson avoids Gwen Stefani circa Tragic Kingdom, she's liable to write to write a hit, too. Bluegrass-stained stunner "Sukkafish" isn't that song, but Hodgson gets to be brassy, whilst the band gets to make chord changes for a change, shifting into banjo-plucked serenity and out of chockablock riff-town. But only the scorched rainbow jam "Science Is Golden" completely accomplishes what this band shoots for. Here, Hodgson lets her lippy vibrato stretch out, but she doesn't push her limits too far. And the band never rushes her through the perfectly sung chorus.
What's great about the Grates, is also what vexes (see, we didn't do the Grate/grate pun). They're spunky and funny. Their sound is consistently chippy. And they're happy! Which is swell for 16 minutes. Over the course of a usually-digestible 40 minutes, the candy starts to get stuck in your teeth. Deck's stuck a milk-and-cookies punk band with horns, banjoes, and a clean recording atmosphere. They might be better served heading back to the basement.
