If Pain Teens and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion fucked and had a baby and that baby grew up to start a two-piece garage band with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon's kid and they went into the studio to record with Phil Spector after his release from prison, The Hussy's Pagan Hiss would be the end result.
Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, The Hussy are leading the charge of the latest garage rock revival of the millennium. How many garage rock revivals have there been altogether? Christ who knows, I lost count in the first half of '93 alone.
This is not meant to sound disparaging at all. The continuous garage-resurgence (and if it never really leaves, can it really be called a resurgence?) would appear to be the last bastion of the original DIY ethos. The realness and the rawness that shuns a world of pro-tools demagoguery and makes great music, period. Some lazy-lucies might put the punk blanket over them, but to do so would be dismissive. There's more at work here than meets the ear.
The songs on Pagan Hiss are an endearing mess with each one a head bopper of a different tempo and most of them catchy as shit. I myself have had "I Told You So" stuck in my head for nigh on three days. This doesn't happen often. It sure ain't happening with anything off the new Black Sabbath. There's an insouciant quality that at times clashes with the immediacy of the music. Thankfully though, in no small part due to the relentless work of Bobby Hussy on guitars, it never devolves into self-aggrandizement.
This album puts a smile on my face and Heather Hussy's petulant vocal delivery, particularly on tracks like "Hate This Town" makes me wonder what it would have been like if Petula Clark fronted The Ramones (answer: it would be awesome).
Back in the day, the two-piece garage band was somewhat of an anomaly until a certain White noise took over the airwaves and then it was a novelty. Then, soon after that, it became the jaded hipster standard, but The Hussy takes it back to its roots - back when it was fun. Fun without the irony and beards.
See also
https://www.facebook.com/thehussyknowsall
