The Coathangers - Garage Music Refined

 If you're something of a music-head, you've played this scene: You put on a playlist or music podcast and start going about your business. The music fades into the background quickly as you work on that spreadsheet or send yet another email. But hey, we're in the midst of a global pandemic and the house is just a little too quiet so the background noise is nice. 

Then you hear something...

"This is pretty good."

You listen a little more closely and pull your head up out of the laptop. 

"Are they saying, "Fuck the NRA"? Who is this?"

Get your ass off the chair to go check the Spotify playlist that is running on the TV to discover the name of the song was indeed "F The NRA" by a band called The Coathangers. 

To the Googles!

"Ha, it's an all female band! That's so great!" 

/end scene

I'm way late to the party on this one(They formed in 2006.) but the album "The Devil You Know" with the aforementioned track was released in 2019. I would definitely call them more garage than punk. You get some fuzzy and sometimes atmospheric guitars. The members Crooked Kid, Minnie, and Rusty(all stage names that end in Coathanger), trade places on lead vocals which gives the songs different feels. They resist the "females in punk" temptation to ignore their different vocal range from men. Don't get me wrong, women can scream or growl punk vocals too but sometimes when they try to sound like "the boys", they end up sounding like every other female punk band. None of that here. Mixed vocal ranges and mixed tempos on the instruments. For evidence I offer "Stranger Danger":

I will confess that I find most protest music boring. Musicians try to shove 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound pail. You get something smelly that you don't want to touch. The lyrics are rarely clever and tend to be a little too on the head. The track that introduced me to this band straddles the line nicely. It does not seem like they are just reading a list of grievances. That takes some talent. 

"The Devil You Know" and a few others are available on bandcamp for download or free streaming. They also have an album in post-production that should be released by the end of the year. You will find all of those listed in their discography.