The history of 2023 is still being written in the wake of the pandemic and how it has affected the rhythm of certain bands. Take a band like Mannequin Pussy, after years of creating with DIY slowness a community of fans, first in the United States and then throughout the rest of the world, in 2019 they explode with a great album on Epitaph (“Patience”) and gallop to bigger stages in the blink of an eye. The big US festivals wanted them to play there, they forced themselves to play more than they expected, good news for the band as part of their creative explosion comes from performing and engaging with their fans live. What happened is known, plans canceled and the confirmation of (good) life after “Patience” exists by the need to put something out, the EP “Perfect” that came out in 2021. In 2023, the stages will be ready again for Mannequin Pussy. As well as the promise of a new album.

Formed in 2010 in Philadelphia, they started out as a duo, Marisa Dabice and Athanasius Paul. The lineup gradually changed over time, by “Patience” they were solid in quartet mode, but “Perfect” was the end point for Athanasius, who left the band for personal reasons. Today they exist as a trio consisting of Dabice, Kaleen Reading and Colins Regisford. Intense live, they are an updated version of the Pixies / Breeders model, with a vocalist who acts with the poise, language and direction of one who knows how to make her personal experience travel to a generation that still needs punk-pop and fresh, immediate anthems. And they are many: “Drunk II”, “Who You Are”, “Control”, “Clams”, “Perfect”, “Romantic” or “Denial”. Mannequin Pussy in 2023 will be possessed with new songs and, most likely, with a full tank to give the concerts – and the dissatisfaction – that was taken away from them in the promotion of “Patience”, the album that put them where they are today. AS

The first time I heard VEENHO’s music, I was immediately overcome with enthusiasm. Right from the first listen, I felt it was clear that I was listening to a group of friends who share a clear vision of the music they want to produce together. Without beating around the bush, they get straight to the point, not overloading their melodies with the pretentiousness so common in their current music scene. The result is brutally raw, sincere and honest.

In this new album, the enthusiasm remains, with a throbbing pulse. However, it’s now noticeable that the band have honed their ability to focus with greater determination on the direction they want to go. You can hear a play of dichotomies between the catharsis of externalization and the introspection needed to reach the conclusions that result in this set of songs. Despite just doing their own thing, they have the dexterity to simultaneously honor the legacy of the alternative rock forefathers who opened the door to our contemporary sensibilities.

If we look back ten years ago, in the history of indie rock from Olisipon, we certainly wish that the bands of that time had had the possibility to sound like this, in a place where distortion and clarity can coexist.

The attention to the timbre of each instrument in this studio work is notorious.All textures matter, and if there are moments with low fidelity elements, we feel their intentionality, that is, it is not just a device to mask inability or laziness – on the contrary, it is an asset.

The band manages to combine guitar riffs that make you want to sing along as you shake your head to the galloping rhythm section.

At the same time, we are confronted with various questions that make us dwell on the rift that exists between the deepest point of our hypersensitivity to the surface of our collective hyposensitivity, as we can observe in tracks like “Half Absent” or “I Never Find the Ability to Let Off Steam”.The band’s ability to create sound images is truly commendable. The instrumentation materializes the sensations that the music evokes, as in “Leather Cleaner”, which makes us feel the physicality of the volatile acceleration caused by a sulphurous vapor that dissipates in less than half a minute.Or in “Fear of Heights”, where the guitars become dizzying and disorienting, as if we had an inexplicable fear inside our chest that is impossible to control.

This is a rock album that presents everything we expect from this musical genre.

But it is even more captivating for being a set of songs created from the male perspective without giving in to the toxicity that is usually associated with it, accepting its fragilities with dignity. As someone who has witnessed the last two decades of independent labels publishing rock in Lisbon, I am deeply proud to know that in this new generation there is a greater maturity that was not observed in the past, as well as an ability to always keep interesting and renew the shine of a musical genre that has already been so exploited.