Sting Sting Sting

The Sick Lipstick's full-length debut, Sting Sting Sting, lives up to its name, sting-sting-stinging the ears with a veritable hornet's nest of buzz-buzz-buzzing guitars and shriek-shriek-shrieking vocals. Sometimes this approach is merely abrasive, as on the opening track, "Go to Bed!," but when the band applies a little more art and strategy to their sound, as on the pouty "Thigh Master I'm Yr. Master" and "Get Up Catch Up!," Sick Lipstick becomes infectious instead of annoying. For better or worse, the band's sound is defined by singer Lindsey Gillard, whose high, piercing vocals sound like a really pissed-off Betty Boop or a mean widdle girl. Indeed, Sting Sting Sting sounds like a 28-minute tantrum, complete with song titles and lyrics like "Zombie Cookie" and "I got pregnant by Santa Claus/Santi Claus/Watch out/A dog pee'd there." "She Has a Broken Femur" is probably one of the only noise punk songs that would also work as a jump-rope chant. The way Sick Lipstick's songs mix sexual imagery with a violently childlike delivery recalls the riot grrrl and kinderwhore movements of the early '90s, although their sound owes a bit more to the no wave/post-punk revival of contemporaries like Die Monitr Batss. Though their take on this sound is less than inspired, and though the album is a somewhat tiring listen in one sitting, in small doses Sting Sting Sting can be subversively noisy fun fun fun.