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Tuesday, August 2, 2011
7 Year Old Blind Girl
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7 Year Old Blind Girl complicates matters by not fitting themselves into any of punk's well-populated subdivisions... If I have to compare them to someone, I usually pick older, Andy Kerr-era NoMeansNo, mostly because they both have a tendency to veer off in an unexpected direction within a song (I can imagine them covering "Dead Bob" or something like that from the NMN catalog.) There can be some sharp corners in a Blind Girl song, hard turns and abrupt edges.
My friends and I tend to spend a Blind Girl show wide eyed, nudging each other for each “can you believe they just did that?” moment... and there are a lot of them. One song can easily be fast and slow, bright and sludgy-- 7 Year Old Blind Girl might have a slow heavy riff slam into a bright, bouncy, up-stroke rhythm, but they're just as likely to change between the two in the middle of a bar, halfway through the third line in the verse.
These songs aren't technical exercises, either-- the flow of the songs, the flow of the show, is not designed to confuse or lose the audience. Changes in tempo and compound time signatures join together dramatically, with big crescendos and heart-stopping pauses. There's familiar territory where they let you find your feet, and fans of traditional, rapid-fire punk rock will find plenty to love at these shows... but expect the unexpected, because a part will never sit still for too long. 7 Year Old Blind Girl seems to operate in the anti-boredom zone, letting a riff or break go as long as it needs to, but the changes take the legs out from under anyone who might complain that punk rock might be predictable or formulaic.
From the audience, Blind Girl shows are equal parts high energy, intense, and fun. There's a playful presence coming from the stage, and for band that can get crushingly heavy or breakneck furious in the song, this obviously isn't a band that takes itself too seriously... they have no problem with stage banter, jokes, or interacting with the audience.
Without fail, these are fun, engaging shows: they're tons of fun for the uninitiated, they're fast enough (and punk enough-- no matter how you define "punk") that the punk crowd will love them, they drop into the kind of heavy grooves that will win metalheads over, and they're intricate enough to win the favor of prog fans. I'm not saying 7 Year Old Blind Girl is all things to all people... they'll surely alienate the beard/glasses/sweaters crowd looking for acoustic guitars, pop hooks, and mooney eyed verses about their deep, deep feelings (for example)... but a Blind Girl show is a riot for anyone who wants a band that will blow their hair back. The added bonus is that you'll have a great show regardless of whether your brain is switched off or on.
Personally, I recommend On.
7 Year Old Blind Girl on MySpace
photos by Tyler Griffith
photos by Tyler Griffith
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