Mommy and Daddy

Duel at Dawn (2005)

Jesse Raub

You know, the other day I was sitting around thinking, "Hey, do you know what we REALLY need right now? Another two-piece band that makes 'dance' music with a distored bass and annoying high-pitched vocals." Or wait, no, what was I doing? Oh right, the exact opposite of that. Man, let me tell you, the last thing we need is ANYTHING that mixes rock with electro/dance music. Death from Above 1979 already slaughtered that genre in 2004. And even then, they're cut-rate compared to Big Business or Lightning Bolt. So then I guess that makes Mommy and Daddy third-string, hunh?

Musically, the songs try to be "edgy" with the distorted bass and the upbeat tempos and loud reverb vocals. You know, Big Business style, but without all the rock that makes Big Business good. I'd actually lump these dudes closer to Le Tigre than anything, and well, Le Tigre is fun, but these dudes ain't. Simple as that.

I must be soundin' like a total hater right now, eh? Well, it's true. For the life of me, I can't in any way see the merit in this album. I mean, honestly, it's not horrible, it's not just mediocre, it's actually just so bland and repetitive that it's not worth listening to. I mean, when your music relies on two instruments, drums and bass, the only way to keep it interesting is to have a good drummer and a good bass player. And, well, the drummer is a machine, literally, and the bass player is just stealing DFA 1979 riffs. Like, straight off the muthafuckin' record. And the whole dude doing the high-pitched vocals…sounds exactly like DFA 1979. I mean, EXACTLY. This shit ain't original or ground-breaking or anything. It's like some dudes got their brains turned on by a band and then sounded EXACTLY like them.
These guys are to DFA 1979 as Screeching Weasel is to the Ramones, only, you konw, Screeching Weasel was fun.

Yeah, I know there's a girl in the band and I keep saying, "These dudes," and stuff, but she sounds like a man, so hah.

This record is trash.