CCMusic.com

• Track Listing

2017 release. With their respective tongues in their respective cheeks, Sami Perez, Hannah Valente, Eva Treadway, and Sinclair Riley of The She's proudly present their second album All Female Rock And Roll Quartet. This time band is behind the wheel, self-producing with counsel and encouragement from tUne-Yards' Merrill Garbus. Lyrically, the band delivers a more mature, grounded, and self-aware album than ever before. Their storytelling is cathartic and relatable. Across twelve tracks, they examine themes of guilt, heartbreak, disappointment, frustration, yearning, and acceptance, effortlessly balancing lyrical sophistication and bluntness, like in "Death Dreams" when Perez plainly asserts "hate how you treat the air like you'll find your breath in it somewhere." Tonally, this album strays a bit from earlier releases. Drawing inspiration from Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, Sleater-Kinney, and tUne-Yards, the bands have officially leveled up in terms of sonic experimentation and eccentricity. From the blown-out wall of blistering guitars in "Ashes", to the trance-inducing ebb and flow of the rhythm section in "Sorry", to the spacious, angelic build-up of vocal, guitars, and percussion in "Holly", this offers up a plentiful spread of compelling tones and arrangements for listeners to lose themselves in. This album is not what long-time fans of The She's might expect-they've been through some stuff since their last release. Sonically raw, this is a vulnerable and honest depiction of who the band is now, boasting a new level of confidence and creativity in songwriting, storytelling, and musicianship, willing to let moments go unresolved and let loose ends hang with intention and certainty.