Crucified Barbara
In Distortion We Trust (Liquor and Poker Music)
By Amber Drea
Published: June 23rd, 2006 | 11:11am
All-female Swedish metal — these words are music to my ears, and so is the U.S. release of Crucified Barbara’s debut full-length album, In Distortion We Trust. The quartet’s name comes from seeing a “barbara” (the Swedish term for blow-up doll) hanging from a cross at a festival in Denmark, and similarly, its brand of hard rocknroll is simultaneously kitschy and severe. Like the reincarnation of Skid Row or Shout At the Devil–era Mötley Crüe, these four ladies combine catchy hooks and heavy guitar riffs with femininely butch vocals and aggressively sexy lyrics.
It’s so difficult to find chicks who actually rock. Sleater-Kinney, the Donnas, and Melissa Auf Der Maur come close, but you can’t bang your head to them. Lying somewhere between the Darkness’s tongue-in-cheek sincerity and Mastodon’s metal resurrection, Crucified Barbara is the real deal. With songs about pissing one’s pants (“I Wet Myself”), riding motorcycles (“Motorfucker”), and morning-after illness (“Bad Hangovers”), these girls ain’t messing around. On “Play Me Hard,” raven-haired lead vocalist and guitarist Mia Coldheart sings from the point of view of a guitar, using not-so-subtle double entendres such as “I know you can’t resist me / In the end I am the one / Who sleeps in your bed / When all your girls are gone,” while showing off skills that rival Slash from Guns N’ Roses. On “Hide ’Em All,” she warns listeners that neither their boyfriends or girlfriends are safe when she’s around, and on the anthemic title track, she pays homage to rocknroll itself. Crucified Barbara’s cover of Motörhead’s “Killed By Death” rounds out the record, presumably to add credibility, but the band’s own music speaks loud enough to blow your speakers without any help from its forefathers.
Issue #35
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