You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

I'm almost at a loss for words. I don't know how or exactly when (maybe a week ago?) I looked into this band, but I'm definitely glad I did.

Back in November, there was a show at the Lager House in Detroit. I can't remember who was headlining, but it was a local band, and I wanted to see it. The opening band was not local. They were Death From Above 1979. I read a blurb somewhere that made them sound appealing, but in the end, I didn't go to the show. I'm reluctant to go out to a show on a weeknight. Especially when it's at a place like the Lager Show where everything goes late. I'm a 9 to 5 cube-dweller, what can I say?

So, about a week ago, their name came up again, and I went and got their latest full length album, "You're A Woman, I'm A Machine." Ho-ly crap! Seriously. It wasn't until after I had listened to the whole thing several times over that I realized it's only two guys. TWO! Plus, it's only bass and drums with the occasional keyboards. Unbelievable. The bass player plays it like a guitar, and it ends up sounding like the guitar tone in War Pigs or Paranoid or Supernaut from Sabbath. Or maybe something from Deep Purple. Either way, this shit is so hot. The thing is, their sound at times is like Deep Purple or Sabbath. Or maybe Queens of the Stone Age? I could even throw out the Rapture in a way. That's the thing, this stuff is swaggering and danceable at times. But not in a cheesy dance way. It's just so simple, yet metal, and stoner rock, and punk at the same time.

Now, I know this isn't anything new, the idea of a duet with only drums and bass playing metal. There's the Ruins, for an example. Or GodHeadSilo. As far as non-metal, but similar duets, there's also the Inbreds, and the White Stripes, and the Soledad Brothers (originally a duet, but now a trio), and the demonically rock as fuck Bantam Rooster. There are more, too, like Low, but that goes outside of the idiom (they're a numbingly downbeat indie-rock band).

There are eleven songs on the album, and the sound always rocks, but it slightly veers in different directions. It really is stoner rock (like Blue Cheer, or Deep Purple), but with these little nuances like new wave (like on "Romantic Rights"), and soul on "Black History Month." "Blood On Our Hands" actually has a dynamic similar to a White Stripes song, but I can't think of which one. It's one of the many songs on the album where both are singing. The drums and the bass are so perfectly syncopated with the vocals, I don't know how else to describe it.

There seems to be a little bit of a theme on the record, too. With song titles like "Romantic Rights," "Going Steady," "Go Home, Get Down," "Little Girl," the title track, "Pull Out," and "Sexy Results" (which happens to have a tambourine line in it), sex is all over this record. Hell, it's dripping off "Sexy Results." It's that good.

Oh, by the way, they're Canadian, and this is their site. Check it out.