Blame it on the name, but Welsh quintet Joanna Gruesome‘s Weird Sister seems to me one of the more overlooked records of 2013. Their noise-pop/hardcore hybrid variously shimmers and crushes your skull, but does both with more intensity, melody, and finesse than other active bands with similar intentions—it helps that Joanna Gruesome is not afraid to sing about aggressively ripping out an enemy’s teeth, or “Anti-Parent Cowboy Killers”.
Weird Sister‘s aesthetic is well-tread on this new track, the sub-two-minute “Jerome (Liar)”, off a split with Bristol’s Trust Fund. More skeletal than the full-length but just as kinetic, its skinny post-punk riffs allow room for noise-guitar squall and some hovering shrieks. Alanna McArdle and Owen Gruesome sing together, like candy on sandpaper, describing a charming mystical freak named Jerome, who talks about magic and the moon and trees and breathing underwater. But he’s a liar, and Joanna Gruesome can see right through him.
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