The Prissteens - Sandal, Controversy and Romance

 Yet another album that I'm fairly shocked that I never got around to writing about as I loved this album when it came out. Made up of three talented ladies (Lori Yorkman on vocals and bass, with Leslie Day and Tina Conellas on guitars) along with Devil Dogs drummer, Joe Vincent (who, they admit, pulled them together as a band and his talent certainly drives the record), they mix 60's girl group sounds with high energy garage rock, power pop (a big concentration on melodies and harmonies) and, of course, punk rock.

They blast out of the gate with Joe's pounding beat for the hard-edged garage-rocker, "The Hound", where the girls, singing together, brag about the guy they just caught, pop-punk combines with 60's girl groups for "I Don't Cry", telling their man he's not worth their tears, followed by more bouncy, hand-clappin', 60's influenced pop for "Run back To You", they do a nice, garagey arrangement of the McCoys' "Sorrow" (resisting the urge to do a fast, punk rock take, to their credit), then the title cut, a well-written piece of call'n'answer'n'harmony-driven garage-pop, before we get to a nice, minor-key bit of garagey harmonic sass for "What's She Got".

Finger-snappin' girl group sounds abound for "I'm Devastated", a genius cover of Wreckless Eric's "I'd Go The) Whole Wide World", more sassy garage rock for "Beat You Up" (the follow-up to "My Boyfriend's Back"?), they move into punk-pop territory for "Someday", then switch gears to crunchy, guitar-led doo-wop-styles for "Party Girl", "Let Me Run Wild" is kinda hard-edged beach/glam/garage and they wrap it all up with snappy, party/punk/pop in "Goin' Out Tonight".

Really excellent songwriting pulls this all together and the cool harmonizing highlights the fine melodies. The guitars are appropriately crunchy (no virtuosos, but that would be a detriment to this style, I think), the drums pound'n'propel and the production (Richard Gottehrer and Jeffrey Lesser) brings out the best in the tunes. Absolutely recommended. A shame they didn't last longer!