Single Review: partygirl – “Tony Soprano”
Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
If there’s one thing you can always count on with Brooklyn-band partygirl, it’s the maximalist and imaginative alt-rock energy they bring to every project. Whether it’s in their passion of creating larger dialogues about social issues or simply being a fabulous jaunt through feverish, overpowering grit and grunge, the six-piece band know what the fuck they’re about. And their long-standing confidence on the matter makes them that much more enjoyable to experience.
On the group’s newest outing, they carry on with the feminist praxis they discuss often in their music with the dazey single “Tony Soprano.” Akin to the likes of Deep Purple meets Mannequin Pussy, the track sees power in women embracing their sexuality. Guitars thrash, vocals howl, and production absolutely haunts as the listener is taken on a hazy, dazzling journey through the freedom of finding liberation even if it comes after loss.
Here’s what bandleader Pagona Kytzidis says about the single
is about a lot of things: hot rage, cold rage, clever rage, yes, but also claiming sexuality fearlessly and with a vengeance for the role in which you were cast and those who desire it. It is a song about power and navigating dynamics to try and stay on top, or at least, not lose. It is about love for your friends when hot in this mania. It is about all that you must leave behind when gendered structures crush your bones and who you must become to survive healing. It is about healing and finding a light at the end of the tunnel, with your friends in hand and armed with new language and knowledge, new weapons and defenses, and new joy and jokes you didn’t even know existed.
As always, partygirl stuns with their ambitious ability to emulate exact emotions in their songs. Here? Skinless rage and valiance and attachment are not only heard but felt throughout the song’s almost six minute run-time. It matches the hellishly hot weather that has come over the east coast lately. But unlike that humid misery, this is a heat-wave you keep wanting to get stuck in again and again.
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Hope Ankney | @heart_vandelay
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