With more time to spend in the studio, Speedy Ortiz has captured an ambitious and confident sound on “Foil Deer.”
Sophomore records are supposed to be dangerous territory, so showed up with a knife.
The Massachusetts band’s 2012 “Sports” EP started some local buzz and the 2013 full-length, “Major Arcana,” was an underground hit, earning the band some serious critical love and a solid following. The follow-up EP, “Real Hair,” sounded like the band was creeping toward something bigger and better, but hadn’t quite gotten there yet. “Foil Deer” finds the band fully there — “there” being confident, sharp, experimental, ambitious and gutsy as hell.
As Sadie Dupuis has told many a reporter, “Foil Deer” benefitted from the band members being able to quit their day jobs and put more time into recording. As , this was “the first time that we’ve done an album that really represents what I heard in my head when I was writing the songs.” In just a couple cases, like “Swell Content,” that sounds like something left off “Real Hair.” But in cases like “Puffer” — a brooding, strutting song with a lot less noise — Speedy Ortiz absolutely sounds like a band that got to spend more time with its songs. There are pretty melodies sung about being locked in a car with some bros harassing you from the outside (“My Dead Girl”) . There are electronic drums, keyboards and synths, but you wouldn’t know without a good ear or a little reading. They still sound solidly like a noisy rock band, albeit one whose frontwoman loves Aaliyah.
“Foil Deer” shows us a much more assertive Dupuis, one who’s fed up with sexist venue staff and anyone else dumb enough to dismiss her. Her past lyrics could feel anxious or a little wounded, but now it feels like she’s channeling hurt or frustration into something thatap part aggressive and part IDGAF. “Don’t ever touch my blade, you fool / You’ll be cursed for a lifetime” is a bizarrely poetic way to threaten someone (Dupuis recently completed her MFA in poetry). No woman should be able to listen to Dupuis declare “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” over and over on “Raising the Skate” without feeling ready to blow up the patriarchy and walk away without looking back. (And you have to hope Beyonce listens to the song all the time.)
The songs all have the muscle to back her up, though some of the most satisfying moments are the touches of pretty vocal harmonies amid the sludge — the chorus of “My Dead Girl” or every time she sings the word “liars” in “Puffer,” for example. Dupuis and Devin McKnightap guitar lines are a tangle of barbed wire, and bassist Darl Ferm and drummer Mike Falcone do much more than provide a sturdy foundation. When the four of them let loose together in a storm of scorching guitar solos, a pummeling bass line and furious drumming, it can knock you on your ass.
So, yeah, “Foil Deer” has a lot going on. Speedy Ortiz is a band that can pull that off.
