Though still sounding ragged and a little out of place in the studio, Steve Albini's raw engineering style is tailor-made for the band, especially for this stark material. Marcy Mays is a mediator between mother and child on "Your Mother Wants to Know": "She wants you to like her so try to forget it/ And she's sorry for all the years and what happened to you when you were a kid." In "Take a Swing," she confronts an angered lover: "If you get me started, there's no telling what I'll do." She's stuck in an un-trusting rut in "Prize": "I get flowers/ I get suspicious, too." Throughout Velvet Hammer, the protagonist is at the end of her rope, struggling to find peace of mind amidst inner and outer turmoil. Whether the songs of fractured relationships within are of romantic or familial nature, they sting with equally biting resonance. It's soaked in tears and alcohol, punctuated with bruises and frostbitten fingers. 'Bout what you'd hope for.Velvet Hammer is one of the saddest, most heartbreaking records you will ever hear. or visit them at their website, which has cute messages from the band, tour info, a little bit of band history and updates on the Columbus, Ohio music scene. So let's keep our ears and eyes open for more news on these folks. Unfortunately, Elektra Records no longer has a Scrawl site up. A nice presentation which may appeal more to the uninitiated listener, rather than the diehard Scrawl fan, but certainly worth giving a listen. Then again, rawness was always a big part of Scrawl's appeal, so gussying their sound up seems almost self-contradictory. Worth checking out.īy the band's standards, this is a fairly "slick" album - which is appropriate, since many of the tracks are re-recordings of old songs they thought were too raspy in their original indie versions. A good, solid album, though maybe not as emotionally resonant as the much quieter Velvet Hammer. Their major label "debut" continues on in the more-than-dysfunctional-relationship songwriting mode, though the production is gussied up and given a larger, more ringing sound. A spare, moody, at times savage, album which I rate as one of the best of its era. Are the songs about relationship fistfights ("Take A Swing") and family secrets ("You're Mother Wants To Know") recovery movement literary role playing, or are these gals actually up to their eyeballs in some deep emotional sh*t? It's hard to tell, but unsettling either way. Other lyrics are less poetic, but no less direct, and taken as a whole the album is quite unsettling.
The highlight is the plaintive, "Tell Me, Boy", an emotionally complex look at the pitfalls of cocooning, and a song which has never failed to get a strong response with the radio audience, generally along the lines of, "Yikes! That's my life they're singing about!" The level of songwriting skill and maturity of thought involved with this album were almost unheard of. At a time when the music industry was obsessed with finding the next Nirvana or Green Day, and literally hundreds of untested, uninterestingly hyperactive, snotty rock bands were being thrown on the wall to see if anything would stick, Scrawl were still plugging away in indie-land, and had become intensely introspective. Scrawl "Velvet Hammer" (Simple Machines, 1993) Scrawl "Bloodsucker" (Feel Good All Over, 1991) Includes the aforementioned "Sad," as well as "I Can't Relax" and the doleful "He's Walking Away." Recommended! The album that won all our hearts - a charming, funny, straightforward rock album which helped redeem "scruffy" in the late-'80s postpunk world. Scrawl "Plus, Also, Too" (No Other Records, 1987) Whether or not the songs are entirely autobiographical, they have a lot of emotional wallop.
since the late '80s, though, Scrawl have refined dysfunctional love songs into a way of life (or maybe vice versa). Back at the start of their career, we all thought the bad-boyfriend song "He's Walking Away" was kinda cute. In an era of oblique, artsy-fartsy navel-gazing and chill-room spaciness, Marcy Mays and Sue Harshe pursued a confessional muse which was less posturing than primal wail. Sure, they rock, but the key to Scrawl's lasting power is in their lyrics. From the get-go, this (originally) all-female combo practically had a big old sign hung around their necks which read: "NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL." Yet they toughed it out as fixtures in alterna-land, and in the process became one of the best bands on the face of the planet. One of the raspiest rock bands to emerge from the pre-Nirvana late-'80s indie scene, Columbus Ohio's Scrawl made their mark with an unassuming album which included the memorable lament, "Sad." (In the wake of Reagan-era censorship rulings, many a DJ got a naughty jolt out of playing the unedited chorus: "I'm sad, sad/I'm so fucking sad."). Scrawl Discography - Slipcue.Com Indiepop Pages
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