Customer Reviews

Hearts & Unicorns (Reis)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Annie Hardy, Giant Drag's brains and brawn, grew up in the '80s on the opposite coast during the best years of alt-rock's creative and intelligent Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly's Throwing Muses recordings and tours. So two decades later how does Hardy so effectively recreate some of the best of the East Coast's (Rhode Island at that!) Throwing Muses' harmonies, lyrics, ironies, humor, and sound?

I'm not a music critic; I simply listen to music and have been for decades. I saw, and with every audience was mesmerized by, the Throwing Muses and Belly and Kristin Hersh and used to smile as my then three-year-old son, now 21, sang along in his car seat to Hunkpapa's "Devils' Roof" with the mistaken lyric "I have two dads" instead of "I have two heads."

Repeated playings of Annie Hardy's "Hearts and Unicorns" bring all that and more back to me. Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly would be proud of Hardy as will you if you give "Hearts and Unicorns" a chance.

Let's STOP beating around the bush ....



This album is GREAT

and EVERYthing else SUCKS !




if you've downloaded/STOLEN these recordings, well then SHAME SHAME SHAME on YOU !

stop being SATAN'S little HELPER and redeem yourself by BUYing the damn thing !!!!

There's just something unique about Annie Hardy's vocals. :)
Too bad there's only the "Lemona" EP and the "Hearts & Unicorns" album released so far. Hopefully another Giant Drag release is not too far off in the future.

This particular review is for the March 2006 re-release of Giant Drag's 2005 debut album "Hearts & Unicorns". It was released in the UK in 2006 with an extra track, a cool cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game". Now the band's label has issued the album again in the U.S, now including the "Wicked Game" cover song. No more need to pay for an expensive UK import.

Interesting, isn't it, how a "girl-fronted" band merits so much commentary about how that fact compares to "normal" bands or whatever it is these reviewers are comparing them to. I once mentioned in a music-support venue at UCSB in Santa Barbara that I wanted to offer financial or logistical support for all-girl rock bands in that area, and the host asked me "What about 'girl-fronted' bands?" And I replied "Oh, you mean girl-fronted boy bands?" And that was the end of that discussion. They didn't need the money after all.

BTW, the music here stands on its own. Unique, good, uplifting even.

I love the unique sound, not to mention the remake of Wicked Game! If you like the Killers, Dresden Dolls, My Chemical Romance, bands along that line then you'll like Giant Drag.

I have just written a review for Giant Drag's EP "Lemona"... Well, this is the important one, the LP, right? Here I go again... I love this album. I like bands with girls on vocals, I like silly lyrics, and I like lots of textured guitars. All of these things Giant Drag has in spades to offer. It's an album that makes me laugh with its lyrics yet it makes me play air guitar. Annie Hardy and drummer guy (forgot his name) surrounded themselves with good buddies/musicians and made a heck of an album! After that their recording label dropped them, which is a shame, because I'm still waiting for their second album and keep following the news on their MySpace page. Recommended for fans of Le Tigre, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, and good girl-fronted bands.

A few of these songs may make it onto my mix discs.

The two member band is burgeoning in the underground. Evidence: White Stripes, Death from above 1979, Deadboy and the Elephantmen, the Black Keys, to name a few.

This two-piece sounds quite a bit different from that list. It's a bit calculated in many ways, but I'm still won over. Sand down all of the the brutality of Thalia Zadek's band Come, or dilute Superchunk and you're close. But lots of the melody is trace-able to early nineties pre-grunge brit-pop. A glimpse of fondness for early Deerhoof in spots, but if you appreciate Deerhoof you aren't likely to appreciate this album. It's not heady.

The "dangerous" lyrics and the censored song titles (self-censored), though not transparent, seem to be a ploy for attention. If she's as smart as Liz Phair she will likely end up either a trophy wife or OD-ing. I'd guess only the first, but I hope neither.

Good looking young girl fronting with a guitar is likely to draw a crowd, and this band is producing reasonably interesting if easily sellable music.
Some may find the "Wicked Game" cover at the end takes a trite song and tries reasonably but a general filler feel creeps in at the end of this album.

The single & the video tho' will probably sell beau coup copies via the iTunes store.

I'd give it 3 and 1/2 stars.