Just finding out about this band, Squish, out of Chicago, they could be a three of four piece and are all punk. Messy, loose, garage feeling a lot like Midnight Snaxxx or Divorce!...just a collection of noise in rhythmic measure, with screamy/talky vocals. At the very least they're capturing a tiny bit of the energy of their live set, which I'm assuming is insane, but somehow they got wrangled into some kind of makeshift studio for these three tracks.
A-Side, "Shame Spiral" is full of that thin sounding rehearsal space sound, and a different side of the teen angst...you can choose to wallow in it, or get like these ladies and look at the brighter, joke side of things. Where other punk sounds push the limits of speed or unlistenable sound, indecipherable lyrics, Squish is playing on The Coathangers side of things, they're intending on having a good time and letting loose with the feedback.
Repeat shame spiral, over and over, sounding happy, bang on the shitty keys. It's a fine line to be loose and raw like this, not too much rehearsaing but still having at the core a good messed up fun song. Do they know how to play? That's like asking if Andy Warhol knew how to paint.
"Bee song" has a great shitty guitar sound buried under a bunch of layers of hiss, the feedback mic'd in the room is perfect. That staccatto punk lyric where nothing has to follow the melody, just a rawkus mess...like Don't touch my shit!. Barely held together with spit and duct tape, the melodies... and instruments. This guitar crunch is a little like the bzzzzzz from a thousand honeybees, the girls seem to be constantly wooo-ing in the background, filling up every possible spare space with that sense of abandon. Let's have a party.
B-Side is a cover, "Rabies is a killer" by Agony Bag. It's got that sound like it was thrown together in an afternoon, but not in the usual way. You have to sound like you can play, and pull it off without it feeling like you're talentless. No... they just aren't going to play every second according to some crazy schedule. They'll get together when they want, just chill out record company dudes. That's the sad part with a band like this because they genuinely feel like they want to just be in it for fun and have a natural togetherness, for them to ever be commercially successful and stick around would just suck all the life right out of this. It's a punk catch 22. Enjoy it while it lasts. I like to hear a band like this in it's infancy throwing out rules, and not giving a shit, doing their own thing.
Get it from Hozac's subscription Klub! Still open. You need another reason already?
This is an older cassette release but Shame Spiral is on the single:
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