Fingerprints Music

Reviews:

Consistently excellent as he is, after 20+ years, we pretty much know what to expect from Morrissey. Having nicked their moniker from a Smiths classic (itself nicked from Kerouac), five-year-old Seattle post-punk quintet Pretty Girls Make Graves admittedly have the advantage of youth, but you sure as hell cant call them predictable. After Murder City Devils disintegrated in 2001, bassist Derek Fudesco enlisted Kill Sadie axeman Jay Clark and iron-lunged frontlady Andrea Zollo to strike up PGMGs ferocious mathcore attack. An EP and full-length of post-punk anthems followed, then the more erudite and meditative The New Romance. Now, having supplanted founding guitarist Nathan Thelen with keyboardist Leona Marrs (and re-recording the entirety of lan Vital to her strengths), the group are more esoterically inclined than ever. Not only are their signature six-string duels absent from Vital, but some tracks feature no guitars whatsoever. The resulting triumph should give Axl Rose hope. Nothing wrong with tinkering until you find the right formula.