Psychotic Teenage Supermodels
According to Urban Dictionary, Sugarpuss is “the cutesy nickname Logan Echolls gives to Veronica Mars (off the CW’s mystery/detective show aptly named for the character) in the episode Ruskie Business.”
Sugarpuss the band, from right here in WA, do not, as far as we know, include in their line-up any plucky teen detectives, but they have solved the mystery of crafting some damn fine pop-rock ditties.
This is music created by musicians without recourse to production trickery. Danceability is achieved by the rhythmic propulsion of the drums and bass, and that hard-to-define quality which, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just call sing-a-long-ability, created through deliciously dark lyrics juxtaposed against toe-tappingly buoyant beats.
Take, for example, the fantastic first track, Falling Outta Love, which is so fun and upbeat it’s easy to gloss right over the references to heartbreak (‘At night I sleep inside a shot gun; The days they play out like a re-run’), even when you’ve pressed repeat so many times you know the lyrics off-by-heart (and believe us, it’s so catchy you will).
While none of the other tracks quite deliver this same sunny-but-bitter disposition in quite the same way, Drinking Alone and Place For A Gun provide balance on the palate. Meanwhile, behind the neat surfaces of Insomnia, Masquerade and They’re Gonna Close The Planet Down, oddities thrive. A killer debut.
LINDSAY WEIR
