Friday is my favourite day. I post the playlists first thing in the morning and take the day off from this website. I queue up all the new releases and listen to music while I work without thinking about posting here. The playlist can get pretty long, with all the great new music out there all. the. time.
That’s the preamble for me finally getting around to the debut album by Trophy Wife, a three-piece indie rock band from Brooklyn. I’m not sure where I first heard the band, but my browser history tells me that it was back in August, when they released the oustanding single “Spit”:
Singer McKenzie Iazzetta’s voice sounds like an anxious, claustrophobic and angry Dolores O’Riordan. That song felt like part of a bigger whole, like there would be context for it on the album.
Aside: clearly she’s heard it before, this cover of Linger is incredible.
The record is called Get Ugly, and it came out on October 4. The first song on the record is called “I Will Be Here”, and like the one above, it’s a journey. It sets the tone for what’s to come, building from melodic to noisy, reminiscent of 90s post-grunge artists. The song is even better in this live performance, where Iazzetta’s fury boils over:
The anxious, discordant and deliberately messy sound mirrors the themes in the lyrics — brutal relationships, dishonesty and distrust in your own mind. In “Keep It”, Iazzetta asks:
Do you want someone else to make it better?
Do you want me to keep it all the same?
Do you want someone else to fuck me better?
Is there anything left to cool you down?
“Swamp Song”, released in September, is the centrepiece of the record. It’s moody and off-balance, built around a Bond-theme bassline and simple melody and spiralling with Iazzetta to a noisy climax, while the narrator contemplates whether the night will end “on the bridge or the bed”. It’s intense stuff:
The record ends with the somber, stripped down “Again”, where the disastrous relationship seems to be done (bless): “He talks so sweet it’s ugly/Last night I dreamt we did it again/The words, the rug, the vomit/I shut my eyes run through it again”
Taken as a single piece, Get Ugly is like a series of diary entries from someone we should really be worried for. Despite the grim intensity, the album has a strong cathartic aspect to it. It’s a killer debut for Trophy Wife. They don’t have any tour dates lined up, but I’m sure they’ll announce more soon.
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