I have a friend who claims that Drop Dead Redhead’s track ‘Woah’ is the best song. Not just his favourite song of theirs, but the best song, period. Since hearing this declaration, I have steadily become more aware of the understated excellence held within Drop Dead Redhead’s work.
While much of the Drop Dead Redhead’s Bunching Together EP covers well-trodden territory in terms of musicality, the whole work drips with a heady sentimental intoxication that is impossible to deny. A standout feature of this is the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the male and female vocal lines. These aren’t just receptacles for lyrical delivery, they surpass this, being used to great effect as purely melodic devices in their own right. Together they trade off post-punky extensions and come together in harmony that is so compelling they’ve come to be known as Drop Dead Redhead-styled harmonies by definition. This, aligned with the passionately aware drumming that drives throughout, leaves us with a hugely dynamic debut EP from the unlikely threesome.
The theme of dangerously damaged love lives runs across the entire EP, but rather than seeming limited in subject matter tracks like ‘Foul Creature of Darkness’ exude a weariness that feels intensely cathartic, even just from a vicarious standpoint.
Listening to ‘Randy Candy’ you soon realise that dancing to guitar music hasn’t felt so youthful and free since the earlier days of Casablancas and co. It’s not just the relentless cowbell that gets the limbs going; everything in the song buzzes with a nervous and thoroughly exhilarated energy. The track dances wildly in front of you and runs off again, all in under two minutes; like a teenager’s first taste of... well, the randy candy.
My buddy is right though, there certainly is something special in the water as you wade through ‘Woah’. Drop Dead Redhead have captured the bona fide essence of harmonious garage music. Starting off on a slow burn, the track moves in waves, dipping underwater before hurtling up for air - spraying cymbals, screeching guitars, and most importantly of all - "woahs". Stories of drunken digression and relationship collapse are divulged, with a hint of a smirk throughout. The final minutes descend into a raucous circus of emotion, finally laying you down and closing the EP. At this point you find yourself left with an unanticipated sentimentality that is even more difficult to shake off than the tune itself. You then come to realise that yes indeed, you may have just heard something quite similar to ‘the best’.
