The Ladies - They Mean Us (Album Review)

 

The Ladies - They Mean Us

(2006)


My copy: 2021 remastered reissue on yellow vinyl with black swirls by Temporary Residence LTD.


The Ladies are a collaboration between Zach Hill (Death Grips, Hella) and Rob Crow (Pinback, Thingy). They Mean Us set out to mash melodic, tangled guitar and vocals together with Hill’s insane drumming. Probably Hill’s most openly melody driven project thanks to the indie tendencies of Crow, The Ladies still by no means sacrifice density.

The album is mostly mixed for each song to flow into one another, and some tracks are merely transitional interludes that last seconds (“Recycler 1a,” “Recycler 1b” and “Black Metal In The Hour Of Starbucks”) which can make keeping track of the songs difficult. “Black Caesar / Red Sonja” introduces the concept for the record with clean-ish guitars and wild drums sputtering along together in unison. Crow is an inherently talented singer with a soothing voice: so to match Hill he plays up a certain indie-rock trashiness that fits the chaotic nature of these songs but still resorts to heavenly vocal harmonies on tracks like “Non-Threatening” which marries coffeehouse singer-songwriter styles to Hill’s mammoth drum fills. 

Math-rock is channeled on tracks like “Vacation, Asphyxia, Vacation” and “Nice Chaps, Buddy” where it is especially apparent due to twisted guitar riffs that bend to Hill’s time signature changes. “So Much For The Fourth Wall” is the best proof of concept with dripping layers of clean delayed guitar washing over Hill’s ridiculous drum fills; Crow’s vocals plead out from a void of noise and the song eventually turns to ambiance and cymbals. 

“Recycler 2” and “And Them” build to heavy walls of tremolo guitar with affected vocals that crack and break into psych/noise spasms. “Mandatory Psyop Freakout” is a 12 plus minute venture into an alien world that snaps from melodic and (relatively) sunny tones to sinister and frightening droning. Hill and Crow pull out all the stops on the 12 minute track, with a random acoustic break, a hummed lead vocal melody and a dark duet for only bass and drums. The new vinyl reissue includes new track “Trapped In The Hobbit” as the closer with whining electronic samples and affected vocals that peer over a barrier of textural guitars. 

They Mean Us is powerful in its clear production and stellar performances, but can be painful with its deep reliance on tension and unyielding drum solos. Once Crow and Hill dial in, you can hear the duo actively struggling to find new ways to bring variance to the tracks, but this is a project that is able to keep things fresher than most Zach Hill side projects.

This new reissue is still widely available on mystery colored vinyl (you don’t know what color you got until you open it).


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