It's no surprise that the Chicago-based trio
Horsegirl made their debut album,
Versions of Modern Performance, while the members were all in the late stages of the high school experience. There is a youthful sense of discovery and exploration in the way they mix and match genres, gleefully pureeing them into something familiar to anyone well versed in the history of indie rock, while at the same time reminding listeners about what makes the style so thrilling when done right. The band definitely are doing it right here as they take all the knowledge gained from attending concerts, trading favorite songs, exploring new genres, and generally being open-minded fans, and come up with something close to perfection. Instead of relying on tired tropes or plugging in influences wholesale as many bands are wont to do,
Horsegirl seem to have swallowed them whole along the way to transcendence. The guitars are jagged and bright like
Gang of Four, but the band don't sound like
Gang of Four. They rely on shards of distortion and noise like
My Bloody Valentine at their most abrasive, but
Horsegirl aren't shoegazers. They take from the dreaminess of
Yo La Tengo, the tenderness of
the Pastels, and the lo-fi chug of
Flying Nun groups, but it's impossible to pin the band down as imitators here, either. Maybe most impressively, they delve into lost corners of the 1990s instead of going for showy grunge trappings. Large parts of the record are reminiscent of the scrapheap noise of bands like
18th Dye or the restrained desperation of
Seam, groups who operated on the fringes but were crafting music that had real impact.
What's remarkable about
Horsegirl isn't just that they did their homework, it's that they put all these influences and inspirations into a tidy package of memorable songs that can soar gracefully ("Beautiful Songs"), kick up some staticky ruckus ("Anti-Song"), ramble and roll like
Pavement in their prime ("Dirtbag Transformation [Still Dirty]"), pay sweet tribute to indie pop forebears ("Worlds of Pots and Pans"), and even shred speakers as they do with the help of
Sonic Youth's
Lee Ranaldo on the album closer, "Billy." The vocal interplay between
Nora Cheng and
Penelope Lowenstein is almost telepathic, and their guitars play well off each other.
Cheng makes the jangling, clangy noise and takes the leads, while
Lowenstein holds down the bottom with melodic strength. Behind them, drummer
Gigi Reece is a low-key powerhouse who can beat the drums into submission when needed but never drags things down. The hours spent working on their sound definitely paid off, and the choice to keep the production streamlined and simple works. The lack of studio glop helps keep the record grounded and very real sounding, and
Horsegirl are nothing if not authentic. They've tapped into the source of indie rock's greatness like few bands have been able to, and
Versions of Modern Performance isn't merely a homage or a neat trick, it's another very strong, very satisfying link in the chain connecting past to present. ~ Tim Sendra
