Arriving just a year after 2018's critically acclaimed dystopian queer outlaw odyssey
Transangelic Exodus,
Twelve Nudes sees
Ezra Furman and her newly minted Band with No Name deliver a savage, amp-melting set that's all teeth. Raw, political, feral, and apoplectic, yet reliably openhearted, the songs were recorded quickly and with the needle firmly ensconced in the red.
Furman pushes her voice to extremes as well, and you can smell the beer sweat and the smoke from her tonsils throughout. The 11-track
Twelve Nudes begins in spectacular fashion with the unhinged, melodic punk rager "Calm Down aka I Should Not Be Alone," a just-over-two-minute slab of nervy ear candy that's thick with overdriven bar chords and punchy compressed drums, and punctuated with the leering "woo-woos" of the
Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." Blunt force pit-inducers like "Rated R Crusaders," "Blown," and "My Teeth Hurt" follow suit, drawing inspiration from the sociopolitical miasma of 2018 and coming off like
Green Day taking a stab at
Dead Kennedys'
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. It's not all bloody fisticuffs, though.
Furman tempers some of that sonic pugilism on the road trip-ready confectionary "In America" and the poignant, gender questioning "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend," the latter of which divulges, "All my friends are writing their resumes/my responsible friends are applying for jobs/but me, I was considering ditching Ezra, and going by Esme."
Transangelic Exodus was a meticulously crafted and heavily nuanced work that showcased
Furman's pop acumen and lyrical prowess. Even at its most subdued, the relentless and invigorating
Twelve Nudes crackles and pops like an alkali metal hitting water. ~ James Christopher Monger
