The Irises serve up ten slabs of spectacularly melodic intense glam pop rock songs on their auspicious debut CD "Not Good In Bed."
From the opening crashing guitar chords of "What's Gonna Happen Now" to the bittersweet conclusion of "Betty's On Parade," The Irises move from soaring to searing vocals, with lyrics that cut deeper than Ginsu carving knives, and picture perfect melodies. Song characters range from aging performers to tragic hostesses, delusional romantics, riot grrrls, missing rock stars and beauty pageant queens. "Perfect Boyfriend" has the year's best line in a pop song with: "She throws a real great party but she's not good in bed."
The Irises isn't the first band for vocalist Roxanne Heichert and guitarist Stephen Quinn, but it comes the closest to capturing the purity of their songwriting. Produced and engineered Vince Jones (Cowboy Junkies, Mystery Machine, Ginger, Siobhan Duvall, Dick Dale), and supplemented by ex-Odd's rhythm section extrordinaire, drummer Pat Steward and bassist Doug Elliott, "Not Good In Bed" dazzles the aural sensibilities. The album features a mixture of highly textured lush guitar sounds, harmonium, Hammond B3 (and some guitars) going through Leslie speakers, and is topped by Roxanne's gorgeous yet haunting voice.
"We were really looking to move forward with this record," explains guitarist Stephen Quinn, "so we spent a lot of time layering parts. We wanted songs that had the instant impact of Blondie or The Sweet, captured the enthusiasm of The Buzzcocks and mid-Sixties The Who, but would also sound fresh alongside Weezer or Suede. Vince, who's assisted both John Leckie and Matt Wallace, did an amazing job on this record. My only regret was that we didn't do a double album, as we started off doing demos of about 25 songs. We had some great stuff and had to make some tough decisions on what made it this time around."
