“She’s a Killer.” Album title, opening track and first furious words. Detroit’s two piece
feminist punk band, GIRL FIGHT, have followed their 2018 debut EP, Fights Back, with 11 new
songs that spark and flare across 18 sweaty, spitty, minutes. She’s a Killer is here to use your
hair as handlebars, your stomach as a footrest and your ears as a funnel for whatever Ellen
Cope and Jacob Boyle are seething about today. You’re gonna like it.
The opening title track, is a tantrum. As is the following the song, and the song after that.
Every song on She’s A Killer is a gleeful airing of grievances. As Cope explains on “Ladder”
they “will break through your ceiling” but when they do, they will “do it with feeling.” The dullard
drum work will tell you when to stomp and when to jump because GIRL FIGHT are as inclusive as
they are aggressive. Even better, by the time most of these songs hit their halfway point the
band has usually picked a refrain or two so listeners can spazz along. “All you see in my is fear”
on the song of the same name. “I am my god” also on the song of a similar name. There are no
wrong choices.
The album is at its best when stepping away from what eventually becomes the
expected. The entirety of the song “White Girl is a perfect example and when Cope and Boyle
begin trading lines, first on “New Noise”, and then again on the impossibly infectious closer
“Out” their energy becomes exponential and it all feels that much more urgent. Even smaller
moments, like the sunken guitar EQ on “All You See in Me is Fear” or the strobbed noise solo
on the title track prove to be the kind of subtle tweaks that elevate these songs from the herd.
Though it may not be the first thing to grab your attention, the instrumentation here
should not be ignored. It is, in technical terms, dumb as hell. Cope’s drums sound like the guy in
the back of the pizza shop stomping boxes flat. If the knobs on Boyle's distortion aren’t turned
all the way to the right, I can’t tell. The music here is beyond simple. It’s also incredibly effective.
If these songs featured any more than three chords, they’d probably be half as good. GIRL FIGHT
might just be the first Detroit based boy/girl two piece to actually have the courage of its
professed minimalist convictions. As they proclaim, with what sounds more like a smile than a
sneer on “Out”, GIRL FIGHT are without a doubt, “walking the right way.”
To you Pittsburgh folks out there, GIRL FIGHT is set to play Air Studio on February 23.
To you Pittsburgh folks out there, GIRL FIGHT is set to play Air Studio on February 23.
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Writen by Jake Rzeppa (@getoldordietrying)