THE KISSING DISEASE
Raw and desperate, careening over
cliffs, small hands on fire, trying furiously, tangled in
bed sheets, dragging and retching, babies buried alive and
clawing at their coffins, drunken wedding dresses covered
in spiders, guilt, shame, sex, vomit, and Day-Glo. Listening
to The Kissing Disease, the second album from this Minneapolis
trio, is like getting run over by a feminist fire truck. Baby
Guts howls their way through 14 songs in just under 30 minutes
and hardly even come up to breathe. The dueling vocals of
guitarist and lead vocalist Laura Larson and bassist Taylor
Motari are frenetic and crazed, pounding forward unrelentingly,
leaving the listener like a dumb founded Dean Moriarty, sweating,
pulling at their hair, screaming and cheering, "Go! Go!
Go!". When Larson wails, "This is not a beat we can
die to / This is not the beat we'll survive to" you're
going to have a hard time believing her. Lyrical themes that
range from the war of the body, siamese twins, and the world's
ugliest woman, The Kissing Disease stands its ground amongst
it's foremothers in the great riot grrrl hall of fame.
Opening fire from the first track "Badmouth", a snotty
and vitriolic punk rock stand-off, the album doesn't cease fire
until the closing notes of a toy piano on "Cricket Lung".
Drummer Rob Goswitz plays tight not always traditionally punk
beats that give the album all the more dynamic and edge, hanging
on to it's crashing momentum by the hair the whole way through.
Not content with merely reinventing the wheel, The Kissing Disease
smashes it to pieces. Blending the energy of sheer punk rock
with the best of grunge, adding a riot grrrl whiplash and to
top it all off the "Best Female Vocalist in Minneapolis" (City
Pages 2008). In the end you are left with an album that sounds
as if it could be the soundtrack to the life of an ugly ballerina
who breaks both her legs, cuts off all her hair, and then sets
herself on fire on her wedding day. Which trusts me, is just
as awesome as it sounds.
Corrie Harrigan
1 Badmouth
2 Tiny Cuts - MP3
3 Shark Teeth
4 Asbestos/Esophagus
5 Firetruck Vagina
6 Tarantula
7 Rum and Coke
8 Bedsheets
9 Hamster Bite
10 Dispelled
11 Meat + Gesture
12 Medusa, Stomach Acid, Brain Cancer
13 Drag - MP3
14 Cricket Lung
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