Pretty Girls Make Graves

I have to admit that I didn't know what to expect from an alleged punk band with no previous full-length releases and a name derived from a Jack Kerouac autobiography. At first, only melodic synth tones unpretentiously rise and fall just long enough to get used to its temperate pattern. Suddenly though, a sonic wall of distorted guitar riffs, crashing cymbals, melodic shouts and systematic basslines blast straight through all of your predispositions. All I could think was, "Who the hell do these guys think they are?" After my inoculation with Good Health, I figured it out: Pretty Girls Make Graves are unquestionably unique, flagrantly technical, and not at all "punk."

Having previously paid their dues in respected bands in the Seattle punk scene, this band's allied parts have broken out of the mold of genre. Under the guise of straightforward, call-and-response guitar rock, they have somehow intricately fused complex arrangements and tight melodies with kick-ass moments of electronic, reggae, funk and even Indian influences. Andrea Zollo's voice both soars and stings on the album's frighteningly intricate gem, "Ghosts in the Radio," while the rhythm section of Derek Fudesco and Nick DeWitt perfectly props up the brazen intertwining of guitars in the emotive, "By the Throat." The only trouble with the album is that at only 27 minutes, I wanted at least a Side B. But with a self-titled EP released just Tuesday, pretend not to notice that it came out a year later. While the band asserts, "All we are is trying not to fall into line," that's gotta be the last thing they have to worry about.