Dreaming of a world where reruns of “The Adventures Of Pete And Pete” are on every channel and kids are free to be as weird as they want to be, RAT FANCY emerges with their fiercely different brand of indie pop. Hailing from Los Angeles, CA—where despite all that sunshine you might choke on the smog and ambition all around you—RAT FANCY is ex Sweater Girl Diana Barraza (vocals/guitar), Gregory Johnson (guitar / keyboard) and Gavin Glidewell (drums).
‘Suck A Lemon’ is a six-song EP about saying goodbye to all that, one kiss-off after another, possibly the sweetest collection of ‘fuck you’s ever committed to vinyl. Every track is a killer. Every track is a keeper. It’s the sound of being fucked up on pollen and sugar, skidding through a dizzy blissful spring of laughter and loss.
The title track appears in two versions, a fast one and a slow one (just like Yo La Tengo used to do!) and they’re both capable of moving you to tears, because despite the sourness of the EP’s title, this music is almost impossibly sweet.
Subject matter veers from the ultra-personal to the paranormal. ‘I Can’t Dance To The Smiths Anymore’ isn’t about the Smiths, it’s about growing up. ‘Five Fingers’ is, quite literally, a slap in the face. Its synth-line stays in your head for days. ‘About You’ is a killer rant against small-mindedness, a manifesto for non-conformity that blends the Pixies and bubblegum into something altogether amazing.
Indiepop is in tatters and the ashes are all around us, and yet, and yet, a record this vital and brave, a record this alive, gives us hope for the future. Suck A Lemon succeeds by being smarter, sharper, and realer than its contemporaries. And if you don’t like it, I think you know by now what you can go do.
“The first RAT FANCY song ever written, “Suck A Lemon” is an anti-drama anthem. Rather than letting negative people bring you down, RAT FANCY tells them to take their bad vibes and go suck a lemon because life’s too short to waste on being bitter,” the band said of the song. “The slower version (“Suck A Lemon II), has a dreamy vibe where you can almost imagine a person writing away bad feelings in their diary. The fast version (“Suck A Lemon I), makes the message clear with distorted guitars and pop-driven synth.”
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