The group's new EP is a satisfying triptych of clever lyrical candour and rock 'n' roll impulsiveness.
Photo: Kirico Ueda | Words: Lloyd Bolton
With new EP 'Butter Wouldn't Melt,' Daisy and the Deadheads return with a collection full of bite and wit. Guitars growl and lyrics cut straight to the point with powerfully distilled attitude.
'Knots' opens things up with a Country Teasing, scratchy, slouchy guitar riff. It sets up the tension of the full EP, especially as it contrasts to Daisy Tortuga's lead vocals. These occupy angelic heights for the most part, though she is always ready to switch into a biting drawl or cut off with a rebarbative dub echo. Though this is a tight three-song collection, this song allows just the right amount of time for the band to rock out, making the most of the brilliantly grizzly guitar tone and an insistent knocking of a high piano key.
'Frog' is a little gentler, with jangling, rolling guitars offsetting the candid prickliness of the lyrics. Tortuga winds her way sarcastically around lines like "you don't understand it drives me wild," making good work of transmitting the conflicting feelings each lyric in turn reveals. She captures romantic frustrations and insecurities with a sharp eye for how one sentence "made me laugh, made me hide" and confronts emotional avoidance with ironic candour singing, "Let me explain, I shake my head, let's go to bed, have sex instead."
'Baby' is the tune that gets stuck in your head, lilting on a perfect bouncing bass line. Though typical of the no-nonsense lyrical attitude that flickers throughout the EP, its opening melody has something of the airy detachment of Cate le Bon as it floats above the grumbling guitars. It jumps down to their level, however, for a barbed chorus delineated by the barked 'Bs' of 'Baby.' "Baby," she sings, "when I say 'Baby,' I don't mean you," invoking the 'You're So Vain' paradox and in doing so, its attendant fury, stubbornly unwilling to give up any ground to the accused. "Baby…" the chorus rolls around again… "you're not a baby but you don't have a clue." Like 'Knots,' this track also allows a tasteful amount of time for the rock 'n' roll energy of the four piece to show through, a burning, Nuggets-worthy guitar flailing its way through the end of the track.
Making its mark in three songs, 'Butter Wouldn't Melt' makes for a satisfyingly tight EP. Lyrically, these songs crystallise emotions and internal conflict with just the right balance of lucidity and contradiction. Add to this a proper DIY indie rock backing band and you've got a set of songs that are immediate but still rewarding on inevitable repeat listens.
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