The Knee Hi’s x Crush
The Knee-Hi’s
Female fronted garage rock band. Here as a living love letter to rock n roll. Serving up a mixture of rock, punk, glam, & power pop.
Before putting a thumb to the screen for this review, I rifled through the web for a bit of background about these guys. Not that additional information helps inform my general opinion of a song - and it’s not something I can remember having done before, it’s just that the song; while an excellent example of my type of dismissive, sexy, trash-pop… could easily be the accidental success of one of those vanity projects regularly formed by drunk conceited teens at a house party because “Julie has a keyboard and Jeremy plays bass, knows how to play Love Cats and roadies for that band that supported the Yeah Yeah Yeahs”
Ok. So… glean whatever cynicism and even, perhaps… latent jealousy I’m projecting in that swipe. It’s just that this song is such a perfectly undercooked piece of ear candy, it could have so easily been the lucky mistake of such a band. But! I’m delighted to discover it’s not.
Crush is a wonderfully quirky little rough diamond.
The ideal palate cleanser between the clinical sound of 90’s digitised 0’s and 1’s and they have-a-crack of the lesser polished New Wave band (B52’s, Waitresses, Trio)
Cheap-sounding keys are an ironic strength and reminiscent of The Cars - Just What I Needed.
Crush is a great song and almost in spite of itself. Saved by the proficiency of the guitars and bass and its overall naïvety; intentional or otherwise.
An extra gold star for the Ramones-worthy down-stroke guitar work over the middle 8.
It’s difficult to determine if I’d have liked this song as much, had it been played with more proficiency or sincerity but without overthinking it, it’s a catchy little minx. Ideal for bopping along while driving and embarrassingly being caught at the lights gesticulating and singing along.
Lyrics: in keeping with the overall product; simple and direct // Composition: Without wanting to be misconstrued, the composition sounds like the work of an idiot savant - keeping in mind that this decisive term means “brilliant”. // Production: I’d have buried the keys a tad more but great overall. // Performance: (see composition)