Releases like Hex and those Division Four demos (on Smart Guy Records) are proving to the Cerberus faithful (god bless you) just how fun punk can be. But where are y’all on this? The D4 record is already OOP so you’ll have to focus on Poison Girls, a bombastic outfit that shot Johnny Rotten’s pistol but elevated themselves even higher via a constitution that included punk, reggae, spiky guitar swipes reminiscent of early Scritti Politti, and even electronics every so often (though a traditional four-piece band always provides backing). And these lyrics; if ever there were a band that, more than 30 years hence, completely embarrasses the lyrical conceits of modern-day indie artists, Poison Girls are it. They didn’t couch their protestations in vague imagery and fortified inside jokes. They wrote songs about women’s rights (“What I’m trying to say is you gotta be strong / Nothing takes the pain away for long”), politics, the politics of artistic integrity (“I used to be a tart, I sold myself as art / Now I feel just like my mother / Her price is low — she doesn’t bother”), and, perhaps most shocking to the crybabies of today, the Holocaust (“They burned, sisters, they burned / And the fire is still burning,” care of “Bremen Song”). Think about it; have you ever, even once, heard one of your musical heroes mention the Holocaust? There are a few exceptions, but for the most part it simply isn’t done. Yet here are the Poison Girls, born back when this writer was 1 year old, not only broaching the subject but challenging the idea that the persecutive realities of it have dissipated. Whether we’ve made any progress at all since then is an open question; protest this fact by celebrating PG for what they are: Way too ahead of their time, at the time, but ideally suited for the vagaries of today.
More about: Poison Girls
