Beyond Bitchin'

Beyond Bitchin' finds the four employing a common musical background provided primarily by producer/keyboardist Jeff Bova and T-Bone Wolk, who plays a variety of acoustic instruments, giving the overall sound a distinct country-pop feel. But it remains the work of four different performers who do nothing more than sing backup vocals on each other's songs. In fact, the album has a strict form, its 12 tracks carefully divided into three groups of four songs in which Debi Smith, Sally Fingerett, Megon McDonough, and Camille West, in turn, take the lead, always in the same order. The first quartet of songs consists of philosophical and abstract songs, the highlights being Smith ruminating over "Little Stars" in the sky and Fingerett celebrating a "Little Mistake." The second quartet consists of love songs of one sort or another: Smith praises "My Kinda Man," a man who can cook; while West tells the lusty story of a chemical truck spill in "Viagra in the Waters." The final set of songs concern family and topical matters with Smith belaboring a metaphor about travel to bring up autism in "Italy and France," Fingerett attacking tabloid journalism in "I Don't Wanna Know," McDonough speculating on what she would do "If I Were Brave," and West commiserating with a teenage child in "Hold on to My Love." Some songs are better than others, and 4 Bitchin' Babes remain four individual performers traveling under a flag of convenience, but the album as a whole treats a variety of issues and situations with humor and affection, which seems to have been the group's purpose from the beginning.