When a band consists of only two members tasked with carrying the weight of riff-heavy and sneakily blues-influenced garage rock sounds on two pairs of shoulders, a certain degree of equilibrium needs to be reached. When Maya Miller and Becky Black decided to leave their former band and write and perform as a two-piece it was probably the best decision they've ever made. Where Miller's aggressive, visceral drumming pummels your eardrums Black's searing guitar riffs and pitched vocals strike back twice as hard. On Do Not Engage, the Canadian duo's fifth album, the tight-knit connectivity they have makes the album flow so seamlessly that it leaves little doubt about the band's synchronicity.
Emboldened with sarcasm and riotous, aggressive intent that sounds like The Pack A.D. are angry at the world and everyone in it, Do Not Engage doesn't allow you to sit comfortably or listen passively, from the outset this album is an abrasive yet addictive listen. "Big Shot" sounds like The Strokes meets Dookie-era Green Day; snarling, unimpressed vocals occasionally embracing a warmer, more self-assured tone. For all of the bombastic-sounding opening songs there is a thread running through them, "Animal" looks outwardly willing revenge against someone who's "just doomed to repeat like a bad rerun" while on the brilliantly layered "Battering Ram" Black muses "after you push me drop me close to the edge" before promising the antagonist that she will "break them down" with an increasingly ratcheted guitar riff that, when Miller's drumming kicks into the song, has the immediacy of a dam breaking.
The album begins with a sense that "everyone has taken everything away from me" filtering through each song, this rage is coupled with an unshakeable defiance that Black won't be anybody's fool, before being levelled by the insular "Loser" where the judgement and rage becomes personally directed. Black asserts "I'm alone because I chose to be/ So when I'm lonely I have nobody to blame but me" directing attention to her own misgivings, signalling a change from the outwardly directed aggression that dominates the first few songs.
The open and twisting structure of Do Not Engage creates an immersive collection of songs, where the antagonised suddenly becomes the antagonist. The finest moment on the album is closer "Needles" which eschews the kick drum, guitar-rattling backing that makes the rest of the album so enthralling. Instead the song relies on Black's vocals and a simplistic electric guitar backing that sounds like an admission of hopelessness, directly in the face of the self-assuredness that initially directed the album. As Black dourly contemplates "every breath I take is a second that I cannot replace" it's equally as unyielding as the more serrated tracks in the punch it delivers, but it feels more like a final blow than a battle cry.
